Interviews

German neuropsychiatrist Dr Johann Spittler, a man who seems both wise and compassionate, bears an enormous responsibility in assessing the decision-making capacity of individuals seeking assisted suicide. As a qualified doctor, he can also assist in their subsequent passing which, as we see in Pavel Cuzuioc’s Green Light, can be highly problematic. “[But] I'm convinced that this right of getting assisted is something every person should have,” Cuzuioc tells BDE before the film’s world premiere in Locarno. “It's not the state - or the law - that should forbid you that.”

Finnish directors Jenni Kivistö and Jussi Rastas discuss their new documentary, world-premiering at the leading Swiss festival. In the film, dancer/choreographer Sibiry is caught in an existential no-man’s land between Finland, where he feels like an outsider, and the Burkina Faso village of his youth, where he has now acquired the status of privileged European. “Our aim has been to craft a multidimensional film in aesthetics...reflecting the internal experience of a migrant that has his mind constantly divided between two very contrasting realities.”

Guinean teenager Fanta is the acrobatic star of Marjolijn Prins’ feature debut, which world-premieres August 11 in Locarno Kids Screenings. Produced by Ellen De Waele and Mirna Everhard of Serendipity Films (Belgium), the film follows the girl as she seeks a place, together with her best friend Makhissa, within the world-renowned Amoukanama Circus. “Fanta’s discipline, openness, and drive to become an acrobat stood out immediately,” the director observes. “As I spent time with her, I saw the potential for a nuanced film about empowerment.”

Swiss filmmaker Antshi von Moos discusses her feature documentary, world-premiering in Locarno, in which she explores the hyper-complex, borderline magical, connections between plants, insects and humans. The flying scents of the title are the volatile organic compounds used by plants and microbial organisms for communication (or, to put it scientifically, chemical signalling). “I wanted to make the plants perceptible as living beings,” Von Moos tells BDE. “And I wanted to find ways not to just talk about the plants, but also to make their hidden worlds tangible visually and also acoustically.”

Italian filmmaker Parsifal Reparato’s new feature doc She (sold by CAT&Docs and premiering in Locarno’s Critics Week) exposes the shameful exploitation of women workers in Vietnam’s booming electronics industry. One irony noted by Reparato is that Vietnam is generally viewed as a dictatorship, under the one-party control of the Communists. Yet, when it comes to personal freedom, “the biggest problem is from the corporates,” he tells BDE.

The last penal colonies in Europe are in Sardinia, as evidenced in the Locarno selection Nella Colonia Penale, directed by Gaetano Crivaro, Silvia Perra, Ferruccio Goia and Alberto Diana. The film was shot by female DOP Federica Ortu. “It was something also that was interesting, to have the cinematography led by a woman cinematographer inside a so-deep masculine world. I think it gives something more to the film,” co-director Diana reflects.

Folk music has held a deeply ambivalent place within Irish culture over the last 100 years, since the end of British colonial rule. As Dennis Harvey and Lars Loven point out early on in their feature doc Celtic Utopia (a world premiere in Locarno’s critics' week), it has come to "incarnate the contradictions of the island: rebellion, conservative Catholicism, nostalgia for a future unrealised.” The directors get musical with BDE.

Ahead of the July 12 world premiere of his feature doc Click the Link Below (Doc Edge NZ), Norwegian filmmaker Audun Amundsen announced that he has commenced photography on a “breathtaking” new sailing doc (working title: Aleutian Dreams) which will follow two families, including Amundsen’s own, as they prepare for a daring voyage through one of the world’s most remote & visually stunning maritime regions.

Dutch filmmaker wendelien van oldenborgh discusses her provocative new short film about transgenerational protest, selected for FID Marseille 2025. Each of the characters embodies defiance in their own way, whether elaborately, or with a greater degree of reflection. “In struggles, as in solidarity, although we look for our roles to play, we can also be there as an anonymous self,” the director tells us in her film.

In Action Item, Berlin-based Slovak director Paula Ďurinová addresses the subject of personal burnout and depression, shifting away from personal reflection to collective analysis. The film, selected for both Karlovy Vary Proxima and FID Marseille International Competition, affirms that 21st Century anxiety is a result of the systemic conditions in which we are forced to live and operate. This recognition can, conversely, serve as a springboard for justifiable anger, resistance and change. Ďurinová gets angry with Business Doc Europe.