Interviews

Al Jazeera commissioning editor and executive producer Sammy Darbashi talks to Business Doc Europe about The House Prison, a tale of a wall and therefore a tale of separation, for which only three shooting days were authorized by Israeli authorities. The film is selected for the AJB DOC’s competition section.

On the face of it, Wait For Me is about as straightforward as it gets. What could be simpler than filming your parents looking after your grandmother for a weekend? Well, think again. Because grannie, a 96-year-old former 2WW partisan captain, is as sharp as a pin, and the business of caring is one that director Damir Markovina’s mother is finding increasingly stressful. The filmmaker tells more to Business Doc Europe.

Screening in the festival’s new SMART DOC section, Pašić’s film tells the story of a Muslim family that was incarcerated in the Heliodrom and Žepče concentration camps (for males and females respectively) during the Balkans War nearly 30 years ago. The director explains to BDE how such a film is important both as a historical document but also a form of therapy for the individuals who are finally given the opportunity to tell their story.

Like its main characters, Catherine Harte’s Faith and Branko is a documentary as much British as it is Serbian. It’s a film that not only fluctuates between cultures, but also between the professional and the personal through the portrait of the musician couple Faith Elliott and Branko Ristic, and also between the positions of outsider and insider for the filmmaker herself.

“If you’re passionate about cinema, you’re passionate about Morricone, there is no other way around it,” Belgian producer Peter De Maegd of Potemkino explains to Business Doc Europe of his decision to partner on Tornatore’s feature doc about music maestro Ennio Morricone, screening out of competition in Venice.

“It takes you back in time. It is for those people that could never go to those events in the 60s and will never see a Led Zeppelin concert. It’s closest we will ever get to being there.” Director Bernard MacMahon and producer Allison McGourty tell Business Doc Europe how they persuaded the rock and roll gods to share a whole lotta love.

In their ground-breaking volumetric VR world-premiering in Venice, Dutch makers Anna Abrahams and Avinash Changa tell the story of four fierce and ambitious women who decide to fight for their fair share of the wealth on offer during Amsterdam’s Golden Age.

Ahead of the 5-day AJB DOC Film Festival kicking off September 10, director Edhem Fočo explains the distinct appeal of his Al Jazeera Balkans event and why the production and consumption of non-fiction is more important than ever. “Documentary filmmakers can try to reawaken empathy in people, by presenting different realities of different people.”

This is not a review, rather an interview. Nevertheless, I am going to go out on a limb from the start to say that there is something masterly about Diana El Jeiroudi’s Republic of Silence, whether as a paean to love and union, or a chronicle of the Syrian conflict as experienced both from within and from without - as an exile living in Europe. The director explains her documentary to Business Doc Europe.

In late 60s Italy, the 3 best directors of spaghetti westerns were all called “Sergio.” Sergio Leone, the maestro behind The Good, The Bad And The Ugly was the greatest. Sergio Sollima was also a master of the genre. However, the undisputed number two (according to no less an authority than Quentin Tarantino) was Sergio Corbucci, the subject of a new doc by Luca Rea, who faces off with Business Doc Europe.