Visions du Réel 24

For lonely and troubled Canadian teenager Billy Poulin the video camera became the friend he never had when Lawrence Côté-Collins put him in the frame, inadvertently recording his worries, outbursts of anger and deep-rooted confusion and sadness. Years later, after he has been jailed for murder, the footage she [Lawrence] shot offers a striking insight into the inner turmoils of a young man whose life had taken the darkest of turns.

In the dream-like Carropasajero we hear the testimonies of indigenous men and women from the Wayúu community in Colombia who are haunted by their colonial past. “In a way, it [the film] is invoking [the dead]. It is a way of giving presence and a voice to those who are not here. For us, that was one of the most powerful things, to feel that the process of [making] a film could be a way of sharing grief,” Carranza tells BDE.

An immersive experience of life on the dark side of Kinshasa - where, after the recent floods, electricity is non-existent and daily life is challenging, yet sense of community and faith remain strong. Although the stories told in this powerful documentary are down-to-earth, filmmaker Nelson Makengo manages to elevate them to an almost ethereal experience through editing, gorgeous cinematography and an intuitive, haunting score.

In her feature doc, which receives its Swiss prem at VdR, Dutch director Saskia Gubbels observes, at first hand, how change is effected within the Amsterdam Fire Department towards wider gender and ethnic inclusivity. The central character, commander Gerrie, puts up little objection to his every move, nor those of his team, being followed, but he certainly wasn't going to change behaviour for the camera, says director Gubbels.

Unapologetically therapeutic, this ethereal documentary retraces a hiking trip that a Taiwanese couple took into the Himalayan mountains, before they went missing. After the Snowmelt is a beautiful, poetic reflection on loss and death bringing solace not only to its maker but to anyone who is mourning the unexpected loss of a loved one.

A doc as a western. A western as a doc. Who could ask for more? In his debut feature Alexis Franco tells a story of elemental forces and extreme opposites. Desert and water. Childhood and old age. Wind and fire. Life and death. All set against the vast backdrop of the Argentinian Pampas, and populated by the director’s own gaucho family. Franco talks to Business Doc Europe about life in the big country.

In following Japanese Noriko Oi on her return to her home town of Nagasaki, Canadian filmmaker Laurence Lévesque provides a delicate and emotional document of a journey into both a personal history and a national trauma, shedding new light on both and underlining the importance of shared memory.

When he was growing up in Mozambique, Pierre-François Sauter used to go on holiday to Cape Verde. Years later, the Swiss filmmaker has returned to the islands to make his stark new feature documentary Far West (world-premiering at Visions Du Réel). The film, which has almost no dialogue, focuses on two characters, Angela and Jair, as they try to eke out an existence in their fishing village in a rocky, volcanic corner of Cape Verde.

On April 15 Visions du Réel awarded the 2024 Prix d’honneur to Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke. French filmmaker Claire Denis, Guest of Honour at the Festival in 2020, paid tribute to him while the prize itself was awarded by Carlo Chatrian, International Feature Film Competition Jury member and former Artistic Director of the Berlinale.

Swiss Films’ Doc topper Charlotte Ducos discusses the six projects nearing completion that have been selected for the SWISS FILMS Previews showcase of April 17. Most of the projects are just about ready to be launched onto the festival circuit. “I think we have a great diversity of storytelling and of background and among the six projects we have three women directors and three women producers. That's important for us,” Ducos underlines to Business Doc Europe.