Interviews

The Geneva-based International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) kicks off March 8, heralding a 10-day focus on human rights and the role cinema can/must play in upholding them. “The strength of an event such as FIFDH lies in its ability to unite those who aid us in deciphering the intricacies of the world, reflect on collective solutions and remind us of the need to take action,” underlines co-director Laura Longobardi.

Between 1945 and 1975 hundreds of tuberculosis sufferers in an Athens hospital were buried in unmarked graves in the hospital grounds. After hearing of this discovery, Greek director Marianna Economou was determined to reconstruct many of their identities. “I felt I had to tell this story, there was no [other] way. These people were coming out of ‘oblivion’ after 80 years telling me, ‘here we are, make a film about our lives,’” she tells BDE.

It’s a strange detail in history not widely known. The Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, responsible for killing around a quarter of his own people during the period of the Khmer Rouge, spent part of his childhood at the Cambodian royal court. He was brought up there by his foster mother, Chea Samy, a celebrated dancer who had married Pol’s older brother. Director Lansch reveals all to BDE.

The 26th edition of the Greek doc fest commences March 7 with They Shot the Piano Player co-directed by Fernando Trueba, who will also be presented with the Festival’s honorary Golden Alexander. A total of 250 documentaries will be screened through to March 17, of which 112 are world, international or European premieres. “What we mostly look for is that spark that lights up when you’re watching a film that hooks you and won’t let you go till the end credits,” Yorgos Krassakopoulos tells BDE of his modus operandi.

Janey Godley, the Glaswegian comedian who is sometimes called the “female equivalent to Billy Connolly,” is the subject of John Archer’s new feature documentary, which closes Glasgow FF. She has had a very tough life, but her response has always been heroic. “My life isn’t defined by child abuse or murder or violence. My life isn’t defined by that just as my life isn’t defined by cancer or comedy. My life is what I make it…I think I just decided I am not going to let anybody beat me,” she tells BDE.

The Home Game is an underdog story, and a funny and uplifting one at that. Winner of the Audience Award at Nordisk Panorama, the film follows the tiny Icelandic football team of Reynir as they play in the local FA Cup on a home pitch that has gone unused since a 10-0 defeat in 1996 to a rival golf club. On paper, Reynir don’t stand a chance in the Cup, but football isn’t played on paper. “I don’t think we could have written it any better,” says co-director Gunn. “If we had written it, people would have told us, no, that could never happen. That’s…cheesy!”

Co-director Murray Grigor talks to BDE about the great Scottish comedy icon Billy Connolly and the film he and Paddy Higson made of the Big Yin’s 1975 Irish tour during a time of turmoil in the country. “Something like 35 guns were taken off people in Belfast [before Connolly’s performance]…That’s why the scenes in the dressing room are really quite tough,” Grigor says of the fraught atmosphere before the comedian went on stage.

Direct Action, which world-premiered this week at Berlin, documents the everyday lives within one of the most high-profile militant activist communities in France. The filmmakers’ intentions were straightforward. As co-director Russell puts it, “the goal was to spend time with people we really admired and to spend time in a place that is mysterious, and to understand [it] for ourselves.”

Director Birgitte Staermose revisits the subjects of her 2009 short film Out Of Love, which offered an insight into the tough lives of kids after the war in Kosovo. “My primary motivation was that I started to see the struggle they had had over the years,” she says of her subjects nearly 15 years on. “They were very much survivors, strong characters all of them. They were not in any way behaving like a victim of the situation. They were amazingly capable people [but] despite all their efforts, I could [still] see the struggle.”

Austrian Alexander Horwath has held a fascination for American film star Henry Fonda all his life. At the age of 17, he even wrote a school paper about the Hollywood legend. Now Fonda is the subject of Horwath’s debut film. ““The type of man he represented, the scepticism, the self-critical nature of some of his characters and of himself…” Horwath reflects to BDE. “He was a counter-image to what I was usually presented with, which was the strong American virile guy who wins all his battles.”