Berlin/EFM 2023

The prolific Mario Martone talks to Business Doc Europe about his documentary profile of the legendary Italian actor, comedian and director, Massimo Troisi. Born 70 years ago, in 1953, Troisi died in 1994, aged only 41, just after appearing in Michael Radfords’s Il Postino, a performance which secured him an Oscar nomination.

The world has changed a lot since the launch, in February 2020, of DAE (Documentary Association of Europe). Three years ago, after we all waved goodbye to Berlinale, everything came to a shuddering Covid-induced halt. But like the rest of the doc industry, DAE founders Brigid O’Shea and Marion Schmidt rolled up their sleeves and got on with it, in their case building an organisation that would represent and lobby for the rights and interests of international documentary makers.

There have been previous documentaries about the Colombia Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group FARC-EP (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army), but director Joris Lachaise’s film takes an alternative view as it delves into the links between trans activists as they stand with disarmed FARC fighters at demos in Bogotá’s red-light district and in FARC camps in the mountains.

In a film which blurs the lines between documentary and fiction, a European filmmaker [Dieutre himself] drives around LA in a Ford Mustang in the company of Dean, a man reminiscent a lover from years before. “Creative documentary is the place where you’ve got the maximum possibility of really thinking about the language of cinema, the form,” Dieutre reflects to Business Doc Europe.

Combining diaristic film footage of society/nature with 3D scanner images, Czech filmmaker Viera Čákanyová playfully and provocatively explores the potential of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence to deal with complex global problems. Notes from Eremocene (Poznámky z Eremocénu) world-premieres in Berlinale Forum.

The German Films MD looks forward to a busy Berlinale in which locally produced (and co-produced) docs feature highly, with four new docs in Perspectives Deutsches Kino section for emerging filmmakers, and two Forum selections; veteran auteur’s Volker Koepp’s Leaving And Staying and Luís Alejandro Yero’s Calls From Moscow. That said, these are tough times for documentary in the German theatrical marketplace, she tells BDE.

EFM’s Baltic Doc Rough Cut Showcase promoted new doc feature projects nearing completion. Stanislavs Tokalovs’ project forms a portrait of Latvia’s Russian-speaking community, following three women from his own family – his grandma, who came to Latvia from Russia in 1955 at the age of 93; his mother, a former university lecturer, and his sister, who is starting her adult life by trying to break away from her family.

Was there really a historical and cultural bond between Iran and Romania? Until watching Between Revolutions that possibility never even crossed my mind. But this personal and visualised exchange of letters between two friends sketches, both organically and lyrically, the connections and parallels between the dark histories of these two countries.

Prolific Oscar-winning producer John Battsek talks to Business Doc Europe about why he was determined to document the life of the German tennis great. “I’m a massive sports fan and a huge tennis fan,” says Battsek. “Talking to Boris, I got a real sense of a life lived achieving incredible things; not least six majors, an Olympic Gold, coaching Novak and being a brilliant commentator.” The film is directed by Alex Gibney.

When she spoke to BDE, Autlook CEO Salma Abdalla was just back from Sundance where Estonian director Anna Hints’ Smoke Sauna Sisterhood was rapturously received, winning the Directing Award in the World Cinema Documentary category. Abdalla outlines her slate at EFM 2023.