“I Was Much More Influenced by Andrea Arnold’s Work or That of the Safdie Brothers”: Boris Lojkine on His Cannes Jury Prize-Winning The Story of Souleymane

The Story of Souleymane follows an undocumented delivery worker as he prepares for an asylum application interview while pedaling through the Paris streets. But belying the innocuous title and unassuming premise, this latest narrative feature from veteran filmmaker Boris Lojkine is actually a fast-paced thriller. And also a logistical feat as Lojkine’s lens races to keep up with his less than honest protagonist (played by dazzling newcomer Abou Sangare, an immigrant from Guinea who, unlike his titular character, is a mechanic by trade) as he literally cycles through a Kafkaesque EU system in which even the most mundane move might unleash a disastrous domino effect. Shortly after the film’s Un Certain Regard premiere, where it nabbed both the Jury Prize and a performance award for the aforementioned dazzling newcomer, Filmmaker reached out to the French director, whose other award-winning projects have taken him from Vietnam to Africa. And now for the first time, back home.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“In Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, the Women are Voicing Out Their Deepest Feelings and Thoughts, But Here in Sauna Day the Focus is On the Unsaid”: Anna Hints and Tushar Prakash on their Cannes-Debuting short Sauna Day

When I last interviewed Estonian filmmaker Anna Hints it was to discuss her Sundance 2023-premiering Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, which would go on to win the World Cinema Documentary Competition Directing Award. (It also nabbed Best Documentary at the 36th European Film Awards on its way to becoming Estonia’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.) The film offers quite a unique peek into a UNESCO-designated tradition that for centuries has allowed women like those the director (and contemporary artist and experimental folk musician) respectfully lenses to bond, heal and reveal in a safe space of smoke and sweat. And now Hints’s painstakingly crafted short Sauna Day, co-directed with her “partner in life and art,” Indian filmmaker Tushar Prakash (who also served as an editor on Smoke Sauna Sisterhood), transports us to “the world of Southern Estonian men who go to the dark-intimate space of a smoke sauna after a hard day’s work” (per the mysterious synopsis). But if you’re expecting a sort of “brotherhood” followup, think again. Not only is Sauna Day not a look at a group of guys experiencing emotional release as they free themselves from society’s gender-specific constraints, it’s not even purely nonfiction with two very intense actors woven into the otherwise vérité proceedings. Which admittedly made a certain sense to me since Sauna Day happens to include what could be viewed as some hot and sweaty catharsis of the homoerotic sort. Just after the 13-minute film’s Cannes (Critics’ Week Special Screening) debut, Filmmaker reached out to the unconventional duo to learn all about collaborating on such an unusual and rather provocative project.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Shame and punishment: Stormy Daniels takes the stand

While Israel’s war against Palestine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine still make above-the-fold news here in the US – mostly in the hyperbolic navel-gazing form of whether or not the former will tank Biden’s chances in this year’s election and thus end democracy as we know it, the latter whether the far-right wing of Congress will eventually withhold arms sales to Ukraine and thus tank its existence – it’s not the news. No, far more riveting than body counts a world away seems to be the real-life soap opera unfolding in a Manhattan courtroom, the recent star of which has been not the corrupt businessman and reality tv star on trial, but the savvy businesswoman and porn star at the center of the former president’s twisty election interference scheming. And to read the rest of my not-so-hot take visit Global Comment.

Euro Division: Hot Docs 2024

This year’s 31st edition of Hot Docs (April 25-May 5) was chockfull of drama, both onscreen and off. And while there were no protests (such as at IDFA) nor riot police dispatched (see Thessaloniki) there was quite an upheaval in the run up to the event itself. Which then led to much speculation as to the health and future of North America’s largest nonfiction fest.

To read all about it visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We Share a Common History”: Patricia Bbaale Bandak on Her Hot Docs-Debuting ‘Death of a Saint’

On Christmas Eve of 1989, a pregnant mother of nine named Imelda Bbaale was inexplicably shot and killed in her home. It was a shocking tragedy that forced Imelda’s husband to flee with his young children to a different continent with the murder remaining unsolved. Nearly a quarter century on, Imelda’s daughter Patricia Bbaale Bandak gave birth to her own baby girl (also Imelda) on that very same horrible yet holy date. The coincidence catalyzed Bandak, now an acclaimed Ugandan-Danish filmmaker, to return to her native land to seek answers — less about the circumstances surrounding her mother's death than about who this woman actually was. Unfortunately for this very direct and no-nonsense daughter, her mother was a saint. As are all deceased Ugandans — as speaking ill of the dead is not just unseemly but taboo. Luckily, the 2019 Nordic Talents-winning filmmaker proves extraordinarily attentive in her winkingly-titled Death of a Saint as she attempts to chip away at the cookie-cutter image of a flawless churchgoing Christian, while remaining highly empathetic to her reluctant family, including her still traumatized father who retired to the country of the crime. And while there are no easy answers, the dogged director, through utmost patience and unburied archive, ultimately does discover a crucial thing or two about her mortal mom — and thus, more importantly, about herself. Just prior to the film’s premiere in the International Competition of Hot Docs, Documentary reached out to the multifaceted director and screenwriter, whose work also includes an award-winning short (2019’s Villa Villekulla) and a critically-acclaimed TV series (2022’s Bad Bitch).

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.