Interviews

Kazz Basma, Head of Sales and Acquisitions at Sideways Film, gives the lowdown to BDE on his 3-film Sunny Side slate, comprising a doc about the outlawed Chinese spiritual group Falun Gong, an examination of gun violence in the US and the struggle to save marine wildlife in Hawaii. “They very well represent our profile as they are all ambitious, timely stories that can connect with broad audiences [served by] public broadcasters, commercial broadcasters and the platforms.”

Getty Images Senior Business Development Manager Emmanuel Prosnier talks to Business Doc Europe about his company’s offer to the international doc industry at Sunny Side 2022. “I haven't yet seen a kind of content we don't have,” he explains of the company’s 480 million visual assets. He will also seek to remind doccers of the benefits of archive both to the bottom line and, more importantly, the environment.

Finnish filmmakers will present no fewer than six new documentary projects during Sunny Side 2022, including the rally doc series ‘The Flying Finns’; the dramatic ‘Untold Arctic Wars 2’ about the significance of the Arctic region during the Cold War and ‘Carmen’, the coming-of-age story of a Finnish Romany girl with a passion for dancing, whom the filmmakers follow for seven years on her way to adulthood.

Kathryn Bonnici, Head of Acquisitions & Development at French/UK Java Films, talks to Business Doc Europe about her specific priorities at Sunny Side of the Doc 2022 and why the La Rochelle market meets her business needs.

Chilean production companies La Ventana Cine and Cábala Producciones arrive at La Rochelle looking for co-production and sales on four projects that include Breaking the Brick, which world premieres at Sheffield; and Chiribiquete, the Lost Civilization of the Amazon, a journey through the history of the peoples living along the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon and Patagonia.

In Lynch/Oz, Alexandre O. Philippe turns the spotlight on the legendary symbiosis between The Wizard of Oz, arguably America’s most absorbing piece of cinema mythology, and the output of maverick surrealist David Lynch, responsible for Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, among others. Philippe talks to BDE about his new work in which five filmmakers and a film critic assess Lynch’s work through the prism of Victor Fleming’s 1939 masterpiece.

Ten brand new Polish doc projects ready to start their careers were presented this week to the international finance, sales, distribution and festival sectors. All the projects are in development or currently shooting, and range in subject from a renewed investigation into a family death, an outsider’s observation of the people living on his Polish street and how a director sets out to find the man of her dreams using astrology.

During KFF Industry, eight new Polish documentary projects approaching completion were presented to the great and the good from the international finance, sales, distribution and festival sectors. The subject matters were diverse, ranging from the life of a transgender woman in Pakistan, to a Rocky-style tale of boxing prowess and dedication, to a Polish graphic designer whose Communist era logos are now considered as significant artworks from the period.

The four-time Emmy Award nominee tells BDE about a busy week in which she presented the world premiere of H2: The Occupation Lab at Docaviv (first pitched at CoPro) before pitching her latest project Ada at the Tel Aviv pitch market.

As one of the characters puts it in The Hamlet Syndrome, it’s not about choice, it’s about responsibility. She is one of five actors who have returned from active military service on the frontline in Donbass, even before the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, to perform in a play loosely based on the Shakespearean tragedy. For them, the question of ‘to be or not to be’ has immeasurable poignancy and weight in existential terms, as the directors tell Business Doc Europe.