Interviews

Oscar-nominated US director Daniel Raim was around 11 or 12-years-old, visiting his grandparents when he first watched Norman Jewison’s movie version of Fiddler On The Roof (1971), the subject of his new documentary Fiddler’s Journey To The Big Screen (screening in the EFM). Raim talks to BDE about the enduring legacy of Jewison’s masterpiece.

Tine Kugler discusses her feature documentary, which world-premiered at Berlinale. Concerning a boy born on the wrong side of the Berlin tracks (and certainly no angel), the film is audacious, engaging and moving in equal measure, and proves that the bonds of familial love are as powerful within society’s underbelly as anywhere else across the human spectrum.

Italian director Nicolò Bassetti decided to make his documentary Into My Name, which world premiered in Berlinale Panorama, after speaking to his own son, he tells BDE. The film explores the lives of four young friends as they deal with gender transition. It was executive produced by Elliot Page, the Oscar-nominated Canadian actor who came out as transgender in 2020.

Due to his advanced age and the difficulty of travelling in the pandemic era, renowned Israeli photographer Micha Bar-Am wasn’t able make it to Berlin (where he was born in 1930) for the premiere of Ran Tal’s new film about him. Nonetheless, director Tal tells BDE that Berlinale is the perfect setting for the film’s launch. Bar-Am’s family lived in Germany for many generations. He saw himself as a German boy. His son lives there today.

Raul Domingues’ new feature documentary was shot in the fields and forests surrounding the family farm in Portugal and its main character - that tough, gnarled-looking old woman still carrying out back-breaking work - is the director’s grandmother. There is nothing easy about the lifestyle Domingues depicts, but his love for the land is apparent in every frame of the doc.

Two years on from the Documentary Association of Europe (DAE) launch at Berlinale 2020, co-directors Brigid O’Shea and Marion Schmidt remind Business Doc Europe of the association’s raison d’être, explain its modus operandi, underline the importance of docfests both as thought hubs and venues for business/creative interaction, and give an overview of DAE activities during Berlin 2022.

The first film selected for Berlinale from the Central African Republic, We, Students! is a complex study both of the country’s youth and a university education system which is both physically rundown and seemingly blighted by corruption. Director Rafiki and producer Boris Lojkine speak to Business Doc Europe.

The former BFI London and Sydney FF director talks to BDE about her new role at Sheffield Doc Fest which sees a number of other new appointments in 2022, including Asif Kapadia as Guest Curator. “Fundamentally the real challenge (and it's quite different from approaching a festival pre-pandemic) is thinking about what the shape of the festival needs to be for the future,” says Stewart.

Nelly & Nadine (a world premiere this month in Berlin) is one of several films that Swedish director Magnus Gertten has been inspired to make using remarkable newsreel footage shot in his home town of Malmö at the end of the Second World War. He explains more to Business Doc Europe.

It sounds like a Bergman title, and in fellow Swede Maud Nycander’s tearjerker of a doc, we are delivered exactly what that title promises. Love, then divorce. But as the director explains to Business Doc Europe, love doesn’t just disappear after separation…