Interviews

“Steve moves faster than us. He is one person with one camera and his energy is really exceptional. He never gets tired.” French filmmaker Denis Delestrac reflects to Business Doc Europe on illustrious US snapper Steve McCurry, the subject of the new feature doc which world-premieres at DOC NYC November 13.

‘Layers of Reality’ is the slogan of the 18th VERZIÓ Human Rights Documentary FF which kicks off across Hungary November 9, running to Nov 14 and presenting 64 films from 35 countries before going online from 15–21 November. “We feel our mission is to bring films that show the world in all of its complexity and diversity,” says Festival Director Oksana Sarkisova.

Filmmaker Gorki Glaser-Müller and his subject and collaborator Patricio Galvez are in London this week for the Raindance Festival screening of Children Of The Enemy (sold by Cinephil). They’ll be giving a Q&A after the UK premiere at the Genesis Theatre tonight (Wed 3 Nov) and their documentary will also be available to watch this week on Curzon Home Cinema. The pair talk to Business Doc Europe.

The logline says it all, telling of two shamans, their tech-obsessed kids and a 1000-mile road trip that takes them back into the heart of the Amazon rain forest. Glasgow-based Basque director Borja Alcalde tells BDE about his doc that will be ready for early 2022, and which he describes as Little Miss Sunshine meets The Mosquito Coast.

It was the story that had the world on tenterhooks in 2018 as an international coalition of critical rescue and support teams, as well as an idiosyncratic group of caving enthusiasts, set out to rescue twelve young lads and their football coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand. Co-director E. Chai Vasarhelyi discusses the film, which opened in the UK on October 29, with Business Doc Europe.

The dust of the film’s title is what is discarded by men within the Vietnamese Sedang community when they retreat to the jungle during their annual process of spiritual cleansing. Director Franziska von Stenglin tells Business Doc Europe about this odyssey, as undertaken by main character Liêm and his three companions, that she recorded on 16mm.

A massive bronze statue in East Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg Park is the inspiration behind filmmaker Betina Kuntzsch’s new film which screened this week in German Competition at DOK Leipzig. She explains to Business Doc Europe the monument’s significance within the “black and white” area she grew up in which has itself undergone the inevitable process of gentrification.

In her new documentary 918 Nights (screening in International Competition in Lisbon), Arantza Santesteban gives a vivid account of the circumstances in which she was arrested in the Basque town of Segura in October 2007. The director talks to Business Doc Europe.

The poignantly titled Fati’s Choice (like Sophie, the biggest choice of Fati’s life concerns the fate of her children) is part of the Generation Africa initiative, which aims to shine a light on the future of youth in Africa through the topic of migration. In the film, Ghanaian Fati is a returnee migrant who is subsequently stigmatised and deemed a failure by the folk in the town to which she returns.

Welcome to Upper Silesia, located mainly in Poland. This is where German director Juliane Henrich’s new doc Vor Zeit (a world premiere in Leipzig) unfolds. A young woman arrives in a village. Viewers may well assume it is Henrich herself but, in fact, the woman we see on screen is her collaborator and friend, Nannina Matz, who “plays” her alter ego. Business Doc Europe investigates further.