Interviews

In his new film, Norwegian Audun Amundsen immerses himself in the murky world of money-making online gurus. Click The Link Below, a premiere at New Zealand’s Doc Edge and sold by Sideways Film, profiles some of these internet marketeers who promise immense and instant wealth and success to those who buy their often eye-wateringly expensive online courses. Amundsen explains more to BDE.

In Garry Keane’s latest film, world-premiering July 4 at Doc Edge New Zealand, we meet three Deaf couples, all Irish, who navigate their challenging lives with strength and resilience, using the medium of Irish sign language. “Telling stories through sign language is challenging, but making this unique film was profoundly moving and creatively stimulating,” says Keane, who led a largely Deaf crew in the film’s realisation.

Daan Veldhuizen discusses his urgent new documentary, receiving its international premiere in the festival’s Edge of Impact category, about how, after after transferring control of their former colony West Papua to Indonesia in 1962, the Dutch set in motion years of genocidal violence against the West Papuan people. “I’ve always felt that Dutch culture is not completely honest about its own role in the world and about its historical relevance,” Veldhuizen comments.

In the Guatemalan barrio of Ciudad Peronia, sisters Lesli and Lupe organise a spectacular comparsa, or street festival, to remember the 41 girls who burned to death in 2017 in a so-called ‘safe home,’ and to protest at the unacceptable levels of femicide, rape and sexual abuse in the country. “It aligned with the kind of storytelling we wanted to do, that was character-centred and about how real people make real change in their community without waiting for the system to change or without waiting for permission,” co-director Vickie Curtis tells BDE.

In her feature doc debut, UK director Jessi Gutch talks to folk in her new home town of Folkestone, which overwhelmingly voted for Brexit in 2016, about the business of identity and what it means to be British. Or perhaps more accurately, what does it mean to be English? “I wanted to just talk to people and not make this into a kind of hero-villain thing. I was going to go into this more open-minded with people, starting from a place of compassion rather than starting from a place of judgement,” she tells BDE.

In Indian Bipuljit Basu’s remarkable debut feature we meet a Kolkata-based troupe of sex workers and their children, who are driving change through CAM ON, their self-run creative community that makes dynamic films about their lives. “I wouldn't have become a filmmaker if I had not met this wonderful community,” says the self-taught Basu. “Over the past five years they shaped me as a filmmaker, awakened my emotion as a filmmaker, and they helped me to grow as a human being…Trusting their collective intelligence made this film possible.”

When he read a newspaper article in 2018 about matchmaking between North Korean refugee women and South Korean men, Norwegian Morten Traavik was immediately fascinated. “[But] being very much of an outsider linguistically, culturally, I needed somebody who could be the bridge to the subject of the film; someone not only bilingual but with a built-in cultural understanding of both worlds,” he explains to BDE as to why he turned to his eventual co-director Sun Kim.

Produced by Elijah Stevens, Humboldt USA interweaves the stories of people in three ‘Humboldt’ place names (in Nevada, Chicago, and California) who are taking unique steps toward tackling environmental concerns in their communities. “These oft-disparate narratives raise the question: in the face of ecological collapse and increasing virtualization of nature, what does it mean to be an environmentalist in America today?” Stevens posits to BDE.

The principles of journalistic integrity and freedom of the press are placed squarely in the frame in Hungarian András Földes and Anna Kis’ urgent new documentary, selected as a Sheffield DocFest Rough Cut. “80 Angry Journalists explores whether a small community with democratic values can survive in an autocratic system, revealing the human cost of defending independent journalism,” producer Loránd Balázs Imre tells Business Doc Europe.

In Carina NicHaouchine’s feature work-in-progress, she documents her younger brothers’ coming-of-age over their weekly Dungeons and Dragons sessions. “Watching these kids grow into fully fledged adults over the course of 90 minutes—witnessing all the highs and lows that come with that journey—makes for a really compelling narrative,” UK producer Steven Lake tells BDE.