Interviews

There is an old brothel in Seville close by one of the city’s busiest highways. Now, the building has been turned into a refugee centre. This is where the subjects of Juan Antonio Moreno Amador’s effervescent new documentary Welcome To Spain have come to build themselves new lives. The director explains more…

Like many other Georgian citizens, Salomé Jashi was startled to see images of a gigantic tree floating down the Black Sea. It was on its way to the home of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire former Prime Minister of Georgia, who wanted it for his garden. Director Jashi branches out with BDE.

Flemish filmmaker Annabel Verbeke talks to Business Doc Europe about her Four Seasons In A Day, selected for Hot Docs and part of the Borderline collection, one of six creative documentaries about unknown but fascinating borders in Europe.

Directed by Luca Lucchesi and produced by Wim Wenders, A Black Jesus poses a poignant and highly pertinent question. How can the residents of a Sicilian village worship the statue of a black Jesus but disregard the refugees who pray in the same church? The filmmaker talks to BDE.

It's a marriage made on two continents and a film put together across multiple time zones. A Marriage: Love In The Time Of The Internet (a world premiere in Hot Docs) is the new documentary by Czech director Kateřina Hager, made in collaboration with Emmy award winning Pakistani director Asad Faruqi. Hager bonds with BDE.

Like its main characters, Faith and Branko is a documentary as much British as it is Serbian. It not only fluctuates between cultures, but also between the professional and the personal through the portrait of muso couple Faith Elliott and Branko Ristic, as well as between the positions of outsider and insider. The filmmaker tells all to BDE.

Greek director Angelos Tsaousis’ obsession with documentary began during his childhood when he used to watch National Geographic films on battered old VHS tapes. “I was fascinated by this form of storytelling,” he tells BDE. “I was fascinated by the fact of travelling, meeting new cultures in those remote areas and exploring our world.”

It isn’t the typical school run, at least as understood by pushy parents in the west. Kids on their way to class in Mohamed El Aboudi’s new documentary School Of Hope (international premiere: Hot Docs’ Spectrum Competition) walk or cycle or ride on donkeys for many miles across the desert.

It is a strange combination of projects to tackle side by side: the horror of Utøya and the blissful, escapist music of Norway’s favourite pop band, A-ha. Director Aslaug Holm discusses how she juggled the two projects, and also how they in some ways overlap.

The Norwegian/US Netflix Original feature doc Sisters on Track by Corinne van der Borch and Tone Grøttjord-Glenne tells the heart-warming story of three siblings (aged 9-12) whose prowess in running shoes is matched only by their indomitable charm and spirit, and by the guidance given them by a single mum and an inspirational coach.