Interviews

It is rare that a film about death can be so life-affirming, but Thomas Balmès’ story of 39-year-old Amandine - who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer - and the relationship she strikes up with a horse named Peyo, is just that. “The film started as a documentary on the horse in the hospital, and ended being a film about that question of what to do with your life when you know that the time you have left is short, how you are dealing with your kids, with your husband, with your family, to prepare them for your death,” the director tells BDE.

“From the beginning I wanted to address one of the problems that concerns me most at the moment, something that affects us all,” comments Natxo Leuza, director of the feature doc Black Water, about the flooding of much of Bangladesh as a result of climate change. “However, it was always clear to me that the story should focus on the characters. I wanted them to carry the weight of the film, representing the millions of people who will have to leave their homes.”

“Of course, I do bring my own vision into the film, my own pessimistic vision, my own personal feelings that I am tired of war,” Oscar-winning Mstyslav Chernov tells BDE of his new documentary 2000 Metres to Andriivka, receiving its European premiere. But this is balanced by “the absolute dedication, strength and hope that the Ukrainian soldiers have on this battlefield. If they don’t have those feelings, if they don’t carry those flags, if they don’t have the hope, if they don’t have that resilience, then Ukraine is gone as a country.”

Hannah Papacek Harper’s feature doc is inspired by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris' book The Lost Words, itself created in response to 50 words all relating to nature being summarily removed from the Oxford Youth Dictionary in 2007 - words such as ‘raven’, ‘magpie’ and ‘otter.’ Without these words at their disposal, it becomes harder for the young generation to develop empathy and connection with the non-human world, Harper reasons to BDE.

Set against a backdrop of a city (Mosul, Iraq) devastated both by war and ISIS occupation, The Lions by the River Tigris tells a story both of stubbornness and regeneration as Fakhri, a passionate collector of artefacts, sets his heart on a marble doorframe owned by fisherman Bashar. But Bashar won't sell – even if the house that surrounds it is in ruins. “I've been very lucky in this film…because each time I was in Mosul there was something else that shaped the whole story, opened the doors and give me a new layer,” director Zaradasht Ahmed tells BDE.

How do adults make a documentary about the private world of children without intruding into and destroying that world? This was the very delicate challenge facing filmmakers Danny Biancardi, Stefano La Rosa and Virginia Nardelli when they embarked on their project, The Castle, screening in competition at CPH:DOX (and sold by Fandango). The trio explains all to Business Doc Europe.

In Petr Lom’s lyrical documentary about our world spinning out of control, one of the core images is of a baby turtle trapped in fishing nets and garbage, washed up on shore, but trying heroically to make it back to the sea. “There’s an old myth that the world is built on the back of a turtle; that the god came down and put a little dirt on a turtle’s back - and the world is built on that little handful of dirt,” director Lom tells BDE. “We didn’t want to make it explicit but that is why the turtles are representative of humanity and who we are, because if the turtles go, we go.”

Viktor Nordenskiöld’s new documentary The Eukrainian profiles Ukraine's deputy prime minister Olha Stefanishyna, who is the one spearheading the country’s attempts to gain EU membership. “When I met her, I saw directly that she was somebody who could embody and personalise this complicated story. You felt her energy. She was unspoiled as a politician. She seems very honest and also very sharp,” Nordenskiöld tells BDE.

…or how boring diplomacy can change the world, reads the logline of Arthur Franck’s satirical take on the famous 1975 conference that ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet empire. They’re all there: Gerald Ford, Leonid Brezhnev, Finnish PM Urho Kekkonen…and Henry Kissinger. “He was a superstar,” director Franck tells BDE of the spider within the conference web. “Maybe actually a really bad guy, but he's still very fascinating, very magnetic in a way. I feel very attracted to his behaviour and his charm, even 50 years removed.”

There are two landscapes in the life of Norwegian filmmaker, Gunnar Hall Jensen. One “normal landscape” existed before his son, Jonathan, 21, was murdered in Brazil in 2023. The other is the world he lives in today defined by sorrow and trauma and for which, as he tells Business Doc Europe, “there are no maps.” Portrait Of A Confused Father world premieres in Copenhagen.