Interviews

Maja Classen’s feature documentary world-premiering in Leipzig, may be highly explicit in its depiction of ‘sex positivity,’ but love, care and consent are at the heart of all the encounters we observe. “My purpose is to build a bridge with this film and to reach a wider audience, people who might be scared and have prejudices against queers and promiscuity,” the director tells BDE. “I want to gently take them by the hand and show them, that there is nothing to be afraid of. It’s all human.”

If you go to Niscemi in Sicily, you’ll find both picturesque woodland and, very incongruously, a US base housing a Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite ground station. Beside it lives Valentina, a woman in her 20s, together with her parents. “In the beginning, it [the film] started as a story about the base. But then, as I was discovering that the fight was gone and there was no hope anymore, I met the family. I found their resistance [to the base] very interesting,” director Francesca Scalisi tells BDE.

Following on from their multi award-winning When Spring Came to Bucha (2022), Mila Teshaieva and Marcus Lenz return to the liberated Ukrainian city to follow a set of characters dealing with personal and ethical dilemmas in the years after the full-scale invasion. “A sense of injustice on various levels is spreading inside the nation. What future will these people have, what future will this society get?” Lenz ponders to BDE.

When he was a young man, director Daniel Abma dreamed of being a school teacher, but when it came to the crunch the responsibility seemed too enormous. Nevertheless, he always retained an enormous admiration for teachers and caregivers, who are now the subject of his new doc, selected for German Competition in Leipzig. “Now I am a filmmaker, I can contribute something to the cause by showing them my respect by making a portrait of the important work they do,” Abma tells BDE of his subjects.

The DOK Leipzig Head of Industry talks to Business Doc Europe about her professional pro-gramme which commences October 28, running through to November 1. "We are an international co-production platform, so we are looking for projects that connect with international audiences who are keen on auteur-driven, visually and formally interesting creative documentaries,“ she underlines.

For Christoph Terhechte, DOK Leipzig can be “instrumental as a festival in helping to boot the career of a film.” A premiere here can provide the perfect launchpad for sales and a later theatrical life, he tells BDE. “It is super important for filmmakers to have their film in Competition in a festival like ours because that might make the difference between a film that gets seen by a happy few or one that reaches the widest possible audience.”

Thomas Riedelsheimer’s new documentary, opening DOK Leipzig (28 Oct-3 Nov), looks at light from the twin perspectives of art and quantum physics. “I am just stunned by the topic, the vastness of what light can mean and be,” the director tells Business Doc Europe. “All these little things make me just aware that the world is a place of wonder.”

Marek Hovorka has no qualms about his festival, arguably the most important doc event in the CEE, situated nearly two hours drive from the Czech capital of Prague. “People are meeting in Jihlava because it's not the capital. It’s like a documentary Woodstock for them. They really are focused on films and talks and meetings inspired by cinema - and by the festival itself,” he tells Business Doc Europe on the eve of Ji.hlava IDFF’s 28th roll-out.

For five years, Slovak director Marek Šulík followed Zuzana Čaputová after she was elected President of her country in 2019. The politician initially took a little time to agree to the documentary, but her advisors and civil servants were all supportive from the word go. “I didn’t meet anybody who was angry or felt bad about my camera. Somehow, they understood this was a unique situation, that in Slovakia we had a woman in this post. It was special, valuable and needed to be recorded.”

Oscar-winner Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi talks to BDE about her National Geographic film, co-directed with Jimmy Chin and Natalie Hewit, about the great Anglo-Irish explorer, Ernest Shackleton, and the hair-raising Antarctic expedition in which his ship (The Endurance) was lost, but everyone on board saved. “I’ve always been fascinated by great adventure stories,” underlines Vasarhelyi, who was joined in conversation by British historian Dan Snow.