Hot Docs Changing Face of Europe: A Happy Man by Sona G. Lutherová
The deep-rooted relationship between psychiatrist Ivan and Marvin, a graphic designer by day and writer of queer fiction by night, is the beating heart of Sona G. Lutherová’s compassionate and gently watchable doc A Happy Man. Marvin, formerly R, came out as a transgender man in 2018 and officially applied for a gender change the following year. How this couple and their children deal with that journey is a story both compassionate and uplifting.
Hot Docs Changing Face of Europe: The Visitors by Veronika Lišková
The Czech director went to the Arctic settlement of Longyearbyen to film the work of social scientist, Zdenka Sokolícková, who was studying the impact of climate change on the local people. “From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to tell a rather an intimate story seen from the perspective of Zdenka…But I couldn’t know at the time how the story would develop…” the filmmaker tells BDE.
Hot Docs Changing Face of Europe: All You See by Niki Padidar
Stylistically bold and as timeless as it is topical, All You See explores the alienation that migrants experience coming to the Netherlands. It was a strong opening film for IDFA, where it world-premiered in November 2022, as its main question concerned every documentary in the programme: we look at people, but do we see them?
Hot Docs Changing Face of Europe: Tax Me If You Can by Yannick Kergoat
“Although I follow political and economic news closely, I was not at all an expert on the issue of tax evasion,” admits Yannick Kergoat about his new doc Tax Me If You Can. “[But] I became one after several months of investigation.” The film addresses how mindboggling levels of tax evasion have become an essential mechanism of neo-liberal globalisation. Thankfully, the French director is anything but evasive with BDE.
Hot Docs Changing Face of Europe: The Hearing by Lisa Gerig
Swiss filmmaker Lisa Gerig talks to Business Doc Europe about her new film The Hearing, selected for European Film Promotion’s The Changing Face of Europe programme, which sees four asylum seekers swap roles with their bureaucratic inquisitors, and in the process question the entire asylum process itself. "To me, it was always important that it was not a film about these four life stories, but a film about our system,” she says.
European Film Promotion delivers a ‘diverse Europe’ once more to Hot Docs
For its 2023 Changing Face of Europe programme, EFP will present 10 ‘outstanding’ European docs during the Canadian docfest, running 27 April - 7 May. The films explore themes centred around identity, belonging and struggle. “Sharing the multifaceted stories by European filmmakers with North American audiences, and connecting documentary filmmakers with the industry, is a great endeavour for us,” says EFP MD Sonja Heinen.
