Interviews

Judges Under Pressure is a film about grass roots protest. It is also a film about the protection of judicial neutrality. Most remarkably, it is a film in which judges are heroes, the ‘armour’ of the people, as director Kacper Lisowski puts it, and one in which those same citizens take to the streets to cry the word ‘Constitution’ in response to their own government’s erosion of that very concept. Lisowski tells more to BDE.

It’s Saturday lunchtime in Amsterdam and Sergei Loznitsa, a very regular visitor to IDFA, is preparing for the world premiere of his latest film, Mr Landsbergis, a world premiere in the festival’s international competition. In a few moments snatched away from his lunch break, the ever busy Loznitsa explains the story behind his new doc.

For many years, Dutch films at IDFA were presented within their own special programme. This year the Dutch sidebar is gone. Instead documentaries from the Netherlands are spread throughout the festival, within the new Envision and International Competitions, and elsewhere. For Simone van den Broek, the new documentary Consultant at the Netherlands Film Fund, this turns out to be an inspiring change, she explains.

For two decades the highly talented populist Norwegian politician Trond Giske turned down filmmaker Håvard Bustnes’ requests to be the subject of a fly on the wall documentary. Until 2017, that is, when allegations of sexual harassment were levelled at him, at which point he went on a tour around Norway to resurrect his political career. And this time, as the director tells BDE, the politician could see the benefits of answering Bustnes’ emails…

Sergei Loznitsa’s feature documentary, Babi Yar, Context, screening in Masters, is part of a much bigger project, The Babyn Yar Memorial Centre, which is being overseen by the Russian director, Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, who also shot his massive and still ongoing Dau cycle of films and installations in Ukraine. Khrzhanovskiy explains to Business Doc Europe.

The MTV-backed doc Ascension, which premiered at Tribeca where it won Best Documentary and the Albert Maysles Award, is screening in the market at IDFA. Director Jessica Kingdon discusses the genesis of the documentary with Business Doc Europe.

Dutch director Shamira Raphaëla talks to Business Doc Europe about the force of nature that is Shabu, a 14-year-old kid living in one of Rotterdam’s roughest estates, but blessed with boundless talent, entrepreneurial savvy and a ton of teenage charm.

Tor Vadseth, CEO of the Norwegian Nordnorsk Filmsenter, explains to BDE the appeal of the North Pitch - Below Zero project workshop, whose target audience is filmmakers, producers and decision makers whose common interest is documentaries thematically rooted in the Northern Polar region, and which is eyeing up its 13th (and live) edition.

“We're in the business of emotions. We're not selling chairs or glasses. We’re selling stories,” First Hand Films’ Esther van Messel tells Business Doc Europe as she eyes up the prospect of industry gatherings once more at IDFA 2021.

The Lightdox IDFA 2021 slate may seem small, but that’s exactly the way company boss Anna Berthollet wants it. What’s more three of those films are in official IDFA selection, including the world-premiere of Serbian Srđan Keča’s Museum of the Revolution in Luminous section. Berthollet explains her rationale to Business Doc Europe.