Interviews

Ted Passon discusses his film about the extraordinary and ebullient Patrice Jetter, a disability activist who will lose her benefits if she marries her disabled partner Garry. “If the story was told well, it had a lot to do with the fact that we had disabled folks at every level of production, working with us…they were always there, helping us check on the story,” Passon says of his awards contender doc. “They were helping along the way, making sure it was authentic.”

In telling the story of ex-soldier and PTSD sufferer Kenny and his partner Kerry, who was sexually abused when she was a small girl, Scottish director Amy Hardie’s new documentary illustrates the power of therapy in overcoming severe trauma. “For me, it was very moving when Kerry said ‘I realise that suffering is not a given. I realise that anxiety doesn't have to be a lifelong condition. I realise that you can change feelings with thought,’” Hardie tells BDE.

“Its vocation is very clear. It’s a festival that understands very well its own mission - that aims for a political sense, a social sense, and that is devoted to cinematic language,” Doclisboa Director Paula Astorga tells Business Doc Europe as doors open on the festival’s 22th edition, running 17-27 October. The festival opens with Luciana Fina’s Sempre, made for the 50th anniversary of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution.

In his doc debut, established fiction director Justin Kurzel follows fellow Australian Warren Ellis (musician, wild man violinist, composer and Nick Cave collaborator) as he embarks on a new venture, working closely with a wildlife sanctuary in Sumatra. For director Kurzel it felt cathartic to be working on a documentary after making all his big budget dramatic features. “I truly loved it. As a filmmaker, I found it enormously liberating. I found myself constantly touched with the present and the possibility of what something could be.”

In Fauna, a Catalan shepherd grazes his flock in the woods beside a hi-tech lab that engages in animal testing, all during the time of Corona. Initially the film was going to focus on the lab’s work in finding an antidote to the virus, but its window looked out onto blissful and bucolic nature. “I told myself, if I find a story outside in these woods, this is going to be the film…and then I found the shepherd,” the director tells BDE.

Co-directors David Furnish and RJ Cutler talk to Business Doc Europe about working together on Elton John: Never Too Late, which European-premiered at London FF. "David was two people at once on this,” says Cutler of his colleague. “He was an artist creating a film but he was also the intimate life partner of the film’s subject. His ability to respond instinctually to material was invaluable.

The hybrid doc tells the story of a young Mongolian couple who discover their herding lifestyle is no longer viable after a monster storm hits, at which point they realise that they will have to migrate with their kids to the city in order to survive. “There was no formal script,” director Brady tells BDE. “The whole notion of the film in a way was an experiment. We had a time and space. Inside of that, we were working with performance, fictional ideas, and at the same time, observation. We were scripting on the fly.”

Exiled Iranian director Farahnaz Sharifi talks to Business Doc Europe about her film which tells a parallel history of Iran since the 1979 revolution, culled from personal archives. “At a time when power structures strive to narrate history in ways that hide important and popular segments, it becomes all the more crucial to share personal details and micro-narratives,” says Farahnaz. Sold by CAT&Docs, My Stolen Planet is long-listed for Best Documentary, European Film Awards, 2024.

The tenth MIA (Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo, 14-18 October) offers up 15 new International projects in the Doc Co-Production Pitching Forum as well as ten ‘Italians Doc it Better’ projects which are either complete or in post-production. The Rome market also presents a series of debates, talks and keynotes on a range of doc-related matters. These include a session with Oscar-winning Odessa Rae, the producer responsible for Navalny and Hollywoodgate. MIA’s doc maestro Marco Spagnoli fills in BDE on what to expect.

Nora Philippe talks to Business Doc Europe both about the Paris-based initiative which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2024, and the need for independent producers to undergo top-level professional training. “You don't survive in the business if you're not trained. If you don't have the necessary skills, if you don't have a network, then you will die. It's a very hard business. You need to have a bit of insanity to do this job, but you also need to be really rational and connected,” she says.