Interviews

Markku Heikkinen’s The Arctic Circle of Lust examines the hidden sexuality of northern Finnish family men which is hidden from their spouses, friends and the surrounding community. “In the film, the viewer gets close to very sensitive…situations in the painful moments of relationships,” says Finnish producer Hannu-Pekka Vitikainen. “The film is intimate and of high visual quality, [depicting] archaic nature and its four seasons, from the darkness of ‘kaamos’ to spring thaw, providing a stark backdrop for private moments.”

According to the right-wing French press, inner-city Paris schools full of kids from immigrant families are hot beds of deprivation, noise, chaos and violence. Not so, says revered French-based doccer Claire Simon, whose new film is set in such an institution. All the children, wherever they come from, are being taught how to become good citizens, "how to learn and how to talk with the rest of the society,” Simon tells Business Doc Europe.

The Ukrainian filmmaker talks to See NL about his latest documentary which chronicles life during wartime, as Ukraine continues to repel the Russian invasion. “Life is always multi-faceted. As we know, there is always a place for lighter moments, humour [and] absurdity, even under these tragic circumstances,” Loznitsa stresses. “At the same time, even in these scenes in the film that are lighter and more cheerful, there is still the presence of tragedy.”

“The whole philosophy of Cannes Docs is all about going beyond a strict industry approach, to advocate for creative, author-driven, arthouse documentary cinema, and for all kinds of forward-thinking political values that I feel our community always has, at heart, to champion,” Pierre-Alexis Chevit says on the eve the 2024 event. Core activities this year include a Palestinian showcase, ongoing support of the Ukrainian doc industry via three special screenings & two new project presentations, a host of industry debates on core topics, and interviews with top doccers such as Raoul Peck and Nicolas Philibert.

The non-profit Chicken & Egg Films is taking its Cannes Docs bow in 2024, where toppers Wolfson and McCrae will be moderating a brace of panels, at the same time banging the drum for their organisation that provides financial and creative support for women and gender-expansive non-fiction directors. “We don’t need to prove that documentaries we support will make millions of dollars. Our goal is to support independent filmmakers to tell stories we feel reflect the complexity, diversity and social justice struggles of the world we live in,” Wolfson underlines.

In The Witness, Spanish filmmaker Pere Salom tells the story of Eduardo Palmer, a prolific filmmaker who documented the rise to power of Fidel Castro in Cuba in the 1950s, but who also took part in the counter-revolution against the regime, eventually settling in exile in the US. “Palmer is, on the one hand, an important and respected producer in many Latin American countries. But on the other hand, he is completely unknown to most people. I want that to change,” Salom tells BDE.

Chilean producer María José Díaz discusses her mixed reality mindfulness project, inspired by the native forests of southern Chile. “The experience [enables] the user to transform their daily life space, like their home or office, into a cosy cabin in a remote place called Cañón del Blanco, a mountain landscape with native temperate forests rich in biodiversity and the presence of millenary trees,” she tells Business Doc Europe.

The archive-based portrait of Roberto Rossellini promises to tell the Italian master’s story and in the process ‘debunk the clichés surrounding the myth’. “For those who love cinema, Rossellini is the genius of great masterpieces, such as Rome, Open City. For those who love great stories, he is the man of scandalous love affairs. He is a fascinating personality, where life and art merge. [This film] is a biopic that can fascinate a wide audience,” producer/director Raffaela Brunetti tells Business Doc Europe.

One Inch Eastward will be the second film in a trilogy about the Washington/Moscow relationship that played out some 30+ years ago. Moscow Nights, the first film, told the story of how Gorbachev, Reagan and Bush ended the Cold War. This new film concerns the Yeltsin and Clinton era. “We were drawn in to these stories by our love of the archives, then we became fascinated by what they revealed to our filmmakers’ eye,” producer Brendan Culleton tells Business Doc Europe.

“I didn’t fully choose the subject, it also chose me,” says Spanish filmmaker Guillermo F Florez of his feature doc nearing completion and presenting this week in Barcelona. “I found myself embarked in the most unexpected project: a comedy about an old woman planning her suicide.” That old woman is the irrepressible Carmen (86), who lived through the Civil War, was previously a nun, was married then divorced in a conservative society, and then took several lovers, thereby following her own very unique path.