Interviews

When award-winning Bosnian filmmaker Srđan Šarenac heard about a prison in the tiny Brazilian city of Pirajui which organizes beauty contests for its female inmates, he was determined that this would be his next project, and was equally determined to use it to campaign for progressive prison reform across Europe. He explains more to Business Doc Europe.

For Polish director Paweł Łoziński, what started off as mere curiosity turned into an obsession. For two and half years he interviewed passers-by from his balcony, discussing their problems, asking them what they thought was the meaning of life, inviting them to be a hero in his film. His resulting doc world-premiered this week in Locarno Semaine de la critique.

Once again, documentaries are in the ascendant at the 27th Sarajevo FF running August 13-20. Core to the doc offer is a competition of 16 films, eight of which are world prems, and 16 new projects from Central, Eastern and South-east Europe, chosen for their wide international appeal and distribution potential. Industry manager Maša Marković explains the doc component to BDE.

In a film whose colour palette registers the melancholic aesthetic of a Rembrandt painting, Polish filmmaker Karol Pałka goes deep into the heart of the Polish countryside to chronicle four years in the lives of mother Danusia and daughter Basia, in the process telling a moving story of longing and absence. The director talks to Business Doc Europe.

Samuel G Barbosa’s debut feature documentary, about the late Portuguese experimental master filmmaker Paulo Rocha, is described as “a dialogue between master and apprentice,” and offers a unique perspective on a European auteur whose work demands reappraisal by new audiences. Barbosa explains why to Business Doc Europe.

In Eliane Esther Bots’ In Flow of Words, interpreters from the Balkan region must apply the same level of neutrality and detachment to the evidence and testimonies they hear at the Yugoslavia Tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague, whether it be from victims or those suspected/accused of perpetrating war crimes.

Intimacy is at the core of Naomi Pacifique’s short film ‘after a room,’ made at the London Film School and selected for Locarno Pardi di domani. But while the two main characters, Naomi and Ram (and at times a third, Marina), are often naked, it is not sexual or romantic intimacy that the director is interested in portraying. Director Pacifique explains more.

Before he begins a 23-month prison sentence, a Muslim veteran of the war in the Balkans sets a series of tasks for his three sons, each of whom goes through a significant personal evolution over the subsequent two year period. Director Francesco Montagner explains more to Business Doc Europe.

“Oil is in some ways at the centre of the biggest challenge facing mankind right now,” director Saeed Taji Farouky tells Business Doc Europe about his new film A Thousand Fires, world-premiering at Locarno. “It's a political issue. It's an issue of climate. It’s an issue of capitalism and exploitation.”

In Yellow Saturday (or Les rendez-vous de samedi) there is somewhat of the ‘when gilets jaunes met Jules et Jim,’ as the recent French yellow jacket protests are graphically chronicled alongside the fictional story of Pierre Bolex and his endeavours to date Paris’ most beautiful women.