Visions du Réel '21

A thoughtful, engaging and gentle examination of the delicate relationship between patient and healer, Les Guérisseurs hits a much-needed tone of compassion and understanding that seems highly appropriate in these pandemic times.

It’s the island that time passed by. Once a thriving community in the Soviet era, it is now largely abandoned by the Russian government. And co-director Svetlana Rodina’s interested in it was piqued by a photograph, she tells Business Doc Europe.

Though rooted in a very specific time and place (Belarus, 2020), director Paluyan has managed to make his documentary seem timeless, almost absolute.

On the face of it, the distinguished French novelist, biographer, filmmaker and screenwriter doesn’t seem an obvious fit as guest of honour at a doc festival like Nyon. However, as he points out to BDE, he has always been passionate about the documentary form.

Of course, Turkish siblings Zeynep and Mahmut are not ‘terrible’ at all. They’re smart, articulate and ambitious, but denied at each turn by religious and societal conservatism. Brother Ahmet, who returned to the family house after a 20-year absence, chronicles their lives as they seek independence and/or emancipation. He explains more to BDE.

A documentary which manages the seemingly impossible feat of merging myth and actuality, thereby becoming mythological itself without diminishing the impact of its factual reporting on the disappearing reindeer and reappearing mammoths of the Siberian tundra.

An enthralling and clever deep-dive into the oddly surreal - and also rather worrying – retirement area of Florida called simply ‘The Villages’.

Visions du Réel will open its doors to the general public from Thursday 22 April to festival end on April 25. Over four days, the Festival will hold around 50 public screenings, showcasing films from the International, Burning Lights, National and Grand Angle Competitions.

There are warmer, easier places to make documentaries than Siberia. This, though, is where intrepid Belgian independent director Liesbeth De Ceulaer headed to make her bold new doc/drama hybrid feature, Holgut (a joint world premiere both at Visions du Réel and at CPH: DOX). The director explains why to BDE.

Welcome to the puppet show. Using life-like dolls, Tomasz Wolski’s new feature documentary, world-premiering in Nyon, remembers seismic events in Communist-controlled Poland in December 1970. The director looks back a half century with Business Doc Europe.