Interviews

One documentary predicted to be a strong awards contender in coming weeks is Sam Pollard’s MLK/FBI, which tells the story of how the FBI eavesdropped on Martin Luther King Jr. The director talks surveillance, heroes and human complexities with BDE.

Stephan Pierre Mitchell’s short doc Deleted, about his short friendship with a neighbour facing eviction, is now screening on Amazon with half the proceeds earmarked to help fight homelessness in the UK. Mitchell tells BDE about the genesis of the project.

Filmmaker Julie Schroell admits she was taken aback when her documentary River Tales was put forward recently as Luxembourg’s entry for the Best International Feature Oscar. She didn’t know that the film could be eligible for the award (which is generally won by fictional dramas). She explains more to Business Doc Europe.

Jerry Rothwell’s ‘The Reason I Jump’ is based on Naoki Higashida’s book about his experiences as a non-speaking autistic person, written when he was just 13. The film is nominated in IDA Best Feature/Best Director categories.

In 'Dick Johnson is Dead', nominated for IDA Best Editing and Writing, director Kirsten Johnson finds numerous and increasingly creative ways to bump off her beloved dad, just so she can keep bringing him back to life.

Director Tiago Siopa describes his 'Ghosts: Long Way Home' as a farewell poem to his home town, a film in which he revisits the myths, folklore and superstitions he grew up with as a boy in the Portuguese countryside. The film world-premiered at Doclisboa 2019.

Lynne Sachs’ Film About A Father Who is a film decades in the making, an extensive study of her philandering father which concludes a “triptych” of studies into the human condition. In January 2021 MoMI (NY) will present a retrospective of her works.

Brazilian actor, director and producer Bárbara Paz can remember exactly when she decided she had to make Babenco: Tell Me When I Die, her documentary about her late husband, the legendary filmmaker Hector Babenco (1946-2016), chosen as Brazil’s Foreign-language Oscar candidate.

Daniel Gordon freely admits to Business Doc Europe that he had never heard of Australian Rules football star Adam Goodes before he started work on his new feature documentary The Australian Dream, recently nominated for a British Independent Film Award.

A Vida em Comum (Life in Common) tells of the sustainable lifestyle within a poor community on the outskirts of Lisbon, where self-made houses and domiciles are now threatened with demolition. Director Diogo Filipe talked to BDE after the film's world-premiere.