Interviews

After the first lockdown hit India in 2020, 22-year old Mahesh, a penniless plumber, embarked on a 1700-kilometre cycle ride back home across the country, completing the odyssey in seven days, in the process becoming a local hero. In his multi-layered doc, director Suhel Banerjee describes Mahesh’s epic journey. “There is, in that sense, the story of Odysseus coming back home,” the director tells BDE. “And there is a little bit of The Motorcycle Diaries as well.”

Ukrainian director Alina Maksimenko talks to Business Doc Europe about her film, nominated for Best Film and Best Documentary at the European Film Awards, in which she joins her mother and father in their village after the Russian invasion of February 24 2022. The director films their daily lives, in which the tension of their enclosed world and uncertain future seems to grip them all…and the animals they look after.

Do You Love Me is Lana Daher’s personal journey through the fractured historical, social, cultural, and political landscapes of Beirut. Using mainly archive footage, the film weaves together the past and the present in a quest to better understand Lebanon’s history and current status. Business Doc Europe sat down with the helmer, who presented her doc project at this year’s IDFA.

In her experimental film which world-premiered at Venice Biennale and now playing in Amsterdam, the Dutch artist and filmmaker examines, explains and demonstrates our species’ fundamental need for the sensation of touch. “Connect to your sensual and erotic sense,” we are encouraged in the experimental work, and be prepared for an experience that is “playful, open, humorous, symbiotic, sensual.”

“I didn’t want just to do a movie about the history of locomotives. I wanted to show a deeper truth about the human condition through the journeys on the train," Maciej J. Drygas tells Business Doc Europe about his archive-based, dialogue-free Trains, which world-premiered this week in Amsterdam. “The train is a very peculiar and weird place for me. When you step in a train, you have the desire for something to change.”

Palestinian exile Jamal Hindawi wants to put on a political stage play which features a metaphorical patchwork jacket which represents the feuding interests that have staked a claim over Palestine. When the jacket is lost Jamal determines to find it, in the process demonstrating how the politics and economics of the region have severely affected the lives and livelihoods of its people. Director Mathijs Poppe discusses the film with BDE.

In his new documentary, Egyptian filmmaker Bassam Mortada looks back at just how his father’s imprisonment upturned his own life, and that of his parents. The very personal movie is about the impact of “the big history” of Egypt on the “very small history” of his own family. “It took us five years. We were very lucky we were more able to get backing from a lot of Arab funds that support independent filmmakers,” Elsayed notes of the film’s supporters like the Doha Film Institute.

Lidija Zelovic left Bosnia for Amsterdam when the war in the Balkans began, but has recently noticed an equally disturbing rise in intolerance and xenophobia in The Netherlands. It chronicles the way that the Dutch political scene has increasingly come to resemble the powder keg in the Balkans she remembers from 30 years ago. There is an intolerance and xenophobia in the Netherlands that she simply doesn’t remember from when she first arrived in the country, she explains.

The prolific Dutch duo are back at IDFA with their heart-rending documentary about the Ukrainian babushkas (grandmas) currently sheltering in Amsterdam as war continues to rage back home. “The city made a big effort to find places for them. We wanted to do something in regards of what it means to be a displaced person,” Peter Lataster explains of his and partner Petra’s intentions with their film.

In his new project to be pitched at IDFA Forum, Belgian filmmaker Kristof Bilsen asks what it takes to say sorry, whether in macro or micro terms. “Apologies hold the power to heal, both for individuals and society. But what makes a good apology? And can it truly mend deep wounds, whether from childhood bullying or historical atrocities?”