Interviews

“The desire to learn about the world cannot be restricted by physical limitations,” says Verzió 17 director Oksana Sarkisova. The Hungarian human rights festival goes online 10-22 November with a programme of 50 films from 39 countries. Programme includes a Hungarian documentary competition for the first time.

Viera Čákanyová’s mesmerising feature essay White on White picked up the award for Best World Documentary Film at Ji.hlava IDFF 2020. The director talks AI, the absurdity of the internet and Lars von Trier with BDE.

Laura Marques’ Nebulae 2020 project embraces loners, romantics, dedicated conservationists and beatniks alike, focussing on the thousand-plus people who, every year, climb high towers to guard against forest fires across Portugal.

Miguel Moras Cabral’s Lisbon doc pitch is intriguing, that of an ostensibly normal kid by day whose tears at night will create floods, disasters and miracles. The project is part of the Arché project development lab dedicated to directors and producers from Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ibero-American countries.

German filmmaker Annegret Sachse refers to her self-produced documentary essay Russia today as “an act of personal, cultural resistance against political alienation”. The feature doc is selected for 2020 East Silver Market.

“We want to derail our participants a bit,” says Ji.hlava Head of Industry Jarmila Outratová, ahead of the doc fest’s October 30 presentation of its Emerging Producers programme, “by going back to their early days… what was their motivation then, and checking if it is still out there.”

When a class that Todd Chandler was teaching in NY showed no surprise at news of yet another mass shooting, his interest was piqued, and he began to dig deeper into the industry of military-style safety provision in US schools. His subsequent Bulletproof is selected for Ji.hlava Constellations and Leipzig Audience Award.

The rain is filling the gutters. The streets are empty of humans, but stray cats and dogs are scavenging for food. So are flocks of pigeons. This is the St Petersburg during lockdown shown in Russian director Tatiana Chistova’s Bless You!, world premiering at DOK Leipzig.

For the DocLisboa opener, director José Barahona took to the waters Fitzcarraldo-like on an odyssey into the Amazonian rain forest in search of the hybrid Nheengatu language, originally the language of the conquerors, now the language of resistance.

As Sheffield prepares to pump up the volume ahead of the Oct 31 European prem of 'Sisters with Transistors', first time feature director Lisa Rovner plugs in with Business Doc Europe.