DocsBarcelona 24

The maverick, madcap director of the eponymous ‘How to…’ series for HBO Max shared his working methods and creative processes with the audience of Docs Barcelona Industry this week. “The closest thing I can relate it to is when you're at a bar and someone's just talking at you for an hour,” he said of his interview technique. “That's the kind of vibe that I try to recreate in the work, where I like to find someone that can just talk without interruption and just doesn't care what I think, which is, I feel, how most conversations historically for me go.”

Paris-based French-Palestinian filmmaker Lina Soualem talks to BDE about her film that documents four generations of women in her family, one of whom is the internationally renowned actress Hiam Abbass, the director’s mother. “It's as if the women of my family…each represent a piece of history, a piece of time that doesn't exist anymore,” says Soualem, whose film screens May 10 in DocsBarcelona’s Docs&Love sidebar.

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.

Born to Fight explores the developmental journey of Tunisian female kickboxer Nawres from 2017 to 2024 within the context of the Arab Spring. “While many stories focus solely on the journey to Europe and the challenges faced there, this film shines a spotlight on the resilience and determination of those who opt to confront adversity head-on in their own communities,” Danish producer Rikke Tambo tells BDE.

Dutch Juul van der Laan describes her interactive project I M U as “an AI essay film installation in which I, the maker, manipulate the viewer’s image using deepfake - live. It is a personal confrontation with the technology and a meditative intervention on what the self and your self-image really are.” The project is presented within the inaugural New Tech Pitch session at DocsBarcelona Industry.

A gently absorbing delve into a family history, Laia Manresa Casals’ Casa Reynal will strike a chord with any viewer who has been drawn into looking into generational history with all of the subtle dramas and intrigues that impact on any family. It is not a film packed with revelations or great incidents, but it is an intimate and warm journey through time.