Interviews

German filmmaker Erec Brehmer's Who We Will Have Been is a film about love and grief that many viewers are likely to find utterly heartbreaking. In the documentary, the director tries to come to terms with the death of his girlfriend Angelina Zeidler in a road accident. "This film for me was also a search for where I can meet Angie again now she is dead. I don't want to let go of her and I don't want to leave her behind in order to start a new life," the director tells BDE.

Burlesque artist Lula had endured tough times in Soviet-era Poland, not a welcoming environment for flamboyant drag queens. But he soon realised that the picture of him that director Bogna Kowalczyk was trying to paint was multi-layered, one touching on death, grief and growing old. That idea appealed to him. "I trust you, let's do it," he told the director, who talks to Business Doc Europe.

Matt Sarnecki’s captivating documentary, selected for Hot Docs International Competition, is more than the story of a murder, that of Slovakian investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová. It’s also a “blueprint of how corruption works…[how] organised crime has worked hand in hand with law enforcement and other political leaders to corrupt a country,” Sarnecki tells BDE.

Selected for Hot Docs Changing Face of Europe, Band describes the existential dilemma faced by the three-woman 40-something Post Performance Blues Band who make a final push for fame and fortune within a pop industry that celebrates youth over talent. The film is very funny but, as Icelandic director Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir tells Business Doc Europe, this ain’t no mock doc. If you are imagining Spinal Tap, then think again.

Polish filmmaker Hanna Polak tells Business Doc Europe about her new doc Angels of Sinjar, which tells the harrowing story of the Yazidi community of Northern Iraq that was, on August 13 2014, devastated by ISIS and its unspeakable barbarism. For six years Polak followed two survivors; Hanifa who is determined to reunite all the sisters kidnapped on that day, and Saeed, brother of Nobel Laureate Nadia Murat, who remains in Iraq to try and rebuild his broken community.

Jacquelyn Mills’ film about conservationist Zoe Lucas derives from a fascination that developed when the filmmaker was a small girl, after she saw a TV news programme about her. “She was this researcher with a herd of wild horses and the largest colony of grey seals in the world,” Mills remembers. “It stayed with me.” The film is selected for Hot Docs Canadian Spectrum.

Jean Genet, Notre-Père-des-Fleurs was the last documentary made by Moroccan filmmaker Dalila Ennadre, who died two years ago following a long illness. The film had its international premiere this week in the Medium-length and Short film competition at Visions du Réel. Ennadre called critic and curator Nadia Meflah to help complete the film six months before her death. Meflah talks to Business Doc Europe.

Dutch/Turkish filmmaker Ahmet Polat’s documentary I am a Bastard comprises a journey into the past that lead character Rashif never thought he ever wanted to take, to discover the truth about his absent father. It is the first production of Studio Biarritz, the Dutch-based production house founded by Corine Meijers.

He grew up “as a pretty average Indian kid" who liked cricket, movies and Gandhi. His family was prospering and so, it seemed, was democratic India itself. Eventually, he left for the US so he could get “a fancy education.” Now, he is on his way home to see what is happening to India during the 2019 national elections. The "unnamed narrator" of Don't Worry About India talks to Business Doc Europe.

The short film Aralkum by Munich-based filmmakers Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko looks to reverse, at least cinematically, the desertification of the Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Commissioned by the Tashkent International Film Festival, who provided the pair with a full crew, the film is lyrical, tragic and inventive in equal measure. The filmmakers talk to Business Doc Europe.