Festival Docs Podcast

BlinkWhen three of their four children are diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare and incurable disease that leads to severe visual impairment, the Pelletier family’s world changes forever. In the face of this life-altering news, Edith Lemay, Sébastien Pelletier and their children set out on a trip around the world to experience all its beauty while they still can. As they fill their memories with breathtaking destinations and once-in-a-lifetime encounters, the family’s love, resilience and unshakeable sense of wonder ensure that their uncertain future does not define their present.DANIEL ROHER DIRECTORDaniel Roher is a filmmaker from Toronto, Canada. His first film, “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band,” was a music documentary executive produced by Martin Scorsese. His follow-up, “Navalny,” won Sundance’s 2022 Festival Favorite Award, the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, as well as the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature. His latest project, “BLINK,” will premiere at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival and will be released by National Geographic Documentary Films in the late fall. In addition to his work in film, he is an accomplished visual artist whose work has been exhibited in galleries around the world. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, and dog, Moose.EDMUND STENSON DIRECTOREdmund Stenson’s work as director, producer and editor spans both documentary and fiction and focuses on social issues, loners and nomads. He recently directed “BLINK,” a National Geographic feature about the Lemay-Pelletier family, who dropped everything and traveled the world after learning three of their four children were losing their vision. Before that, he was an associate editor on BAFTA- and Oscar®-winner “Navalny” (2022), a documentary-thriller about the Russian dissident’s poisoning.In 2018, he directed the award-winning “Finding Fukue,” the viral CBC success that has amassed over 14.5 million views online. He has also cut award-winning documentary features, shorts and television series in English, French and Japanese: most notably, Canadian Screen Award winner “Being Black in Toronto” (2020), “Ciao Plastique” (2020), “Ghosts of Our Forest” (2017), “Ma vie Made in Canada” (2017), “Sourtoe: The Story of the Sorry Cannibal” and “Retour aux sources” aka “The Roots Remain” (2015). Stenson is also somewhat obsessed with the Chilean filmmaker and magician Raúl Ruiz, as well as another kind of magician: Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy.

A Want in HerDebuting filmmaker Myrid Carten has been filming since she was a child, and when her mother goes missing, she picks up her camera again in response to this new crisis. Her mother Nuala, once a successful social worker, suffered a mental breakdown after the sudden death of her own mother. She shuffles between rehab clinics, psychiatric hospitals, and occasionally the street.Intimate, surprising, and often darkly funny conversations with her mother and other family members reveal the trials of loving someone who struggles with addiction and madness. Home videos from Myrid’s childhood and recordings of video installations from her current work as an artist form a playful blend of fictional and documentary elements, which compellingly capture the vicious cycle of care and rage.Atmospheric Irish ballads about vagrant drinkers and dreamlike images of the neglected family home conjure the cultural and relational roots at play. In fresh and inventive ways, the film returns to a familiar, universal question: how can we be with those we love without losing ourselves?Myrid Carten Myrid Carten is an Irish filmmaker who makes works for cinemas and galleries. She trained in Artists’ Film at Goldsmiths University Londonand Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, UAL. Her work interrogates both the struggle for intimacy and the ways we are compromised by our pasts. She received the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Artist Award 2018- 19. Her films have screened internationally and been supported by the BFI, Doc Society,Screen Ireland, NI Screen, New Dawn Fund and the Netherlands Film Fund. A Want in Her is her debut feature.Recent solo exhibitionsPreta Act 2, Mother’s Tank Station, London(2023)Preta (Hungry Ghost), Mother’s Tank Station,Dublin (2022)Recent group exhibitionsIn the Same Breath, Freelands Foundation, London (2023)Bones in the Attic, Hugh Lane Gallery (2022 A Different Horizon, Lismore Castle Arts,Waterford Ireland (2022)My Body is an Exhibition, Sadler’s Wells London (2021)Recent residenciesISCP NYC 2020-21Hospitalfield 2020-2021Artlink Dunree 2020British Council/ACNI International Artist residency, India 2017-18Recent awardsArts Council of Ireland’s Commission Award 2020-21DocsIE Pitch Award 2019TBG&S Project Studio Award 2018-19Fire Station Artists Studio Digital Media Award 2018Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Artist Award 2018-19Her work is in the Arts Council of Ireland and Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s nationalcollections.

SynposisAfter a local factory worker named Dorem Clery dies under mysterious circumstances, Werner Herzog travels to Getunkirchenburg to investigate his perplexing death. But Herzog, our narrator, is not who he seems, and the film is not what we expect…A computer will not make a film as good as mine in 4500 years. Werner HerzogAbout a Hero is an adaptation of a script written by an AI trained on Herzog’s body of work. The fictional narrative it produced, ironically self-reflective, is intertwined with a series of interviews with artists, philosophers and scientists reflecting on the notion of originality, authenticity, immortality, and the soul in the age of AI.Piotr Winiewicz Piotr Winiewicz is an artist and a filmmaker. He is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His work focuses on questioning the human role in the cosmos. About a Hero, a Pressman and Tambo Production, will be his debut feature film.

Where Dragons Live Following the death of their parents, Harriet and her siblings must unpack their childhood fears as they prepare to sell their dragon-filled Oxfordshire home. Suzanne Raes’ film follows the Impey family through a major transition: rifling through the contents of their childhood home in preparation to sell it, with their own children watching on. Between the clutter and the boxes, the siblings find themselves haunted by the memories of their late parents: a dragon-obsessed father and an exacting mother, and the esoteric collections of objects they left behind. Working through her award-winning documentary collective, Docmakers, veteran filmmaker Raes (0.03 Seconde, Two Men, Close to Vermeer) carves out a disarmingly tender rumination on parent-child relationships. Giving equal weight to each sibling, balancing the light and shade of the physical and emotional spaces of their lives, Where Dragons Live also features some dazzling visuals in the way it presents this personal history.Suzanne Rae Suzanne Raes has been working as an independent filmmaker for more than 20 years. Her early films The Houses of Hristina (2007), The Rainbow Warriors of Waiheke Island (2009), and The Successor of Kakiemon (2012) premiered at IDFA and won several awards at international film festivals. Her film Come Closer about Boudewijn de Groot received the IDFA Music Audience Award in 2015. For her film about the Rotterdam social service, Quid pro quo (2015) Raes won a Golden Calf, the most important film award in the Netherlands. The international co-production Ganz: How I Lost My Beetle (2019) had a theatrical release in the Netherlands and has been broadcast in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. In 2023, her film Close to Vermeer was the only Dutch feature-length documentary that qualified for an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature, following successful theatrical runs in the Netherlands, United States and Germany. The film was also nominated for a Golden Calf and won the Special Jury Prize at Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival. Close to Vermeer has been sold to 15 countries to date.

Don't Forget to RememberAn artist navigates his mother's life and memories as they are being eroded by the advance of Alzheimer's.This collaboration between filmmaker Ross Killeen and Irish street artist Asbestos documents the latter’s creation of an installation inspired by his mother, Helena, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The artwork is an attempt to preserve Helena’s memories of her life – capturing her experiences and feelings – and her love for those who have played a part in it. At the same time, Killeen captures Asbestos’ own love for his mother as he attempts to preserve her recollections. The film is also a record of how life-changing a condition Alzheimer’s is – a moving and poignant portrait that conveys the lived experience of a neurodegenerative condition. But it is also a joyous celebration of a life lived and a testament to the vivid, if fragile, nature of our memory.Ross Killen Ross Killeen is a film director based in Dublin. He founded the award winning production company, Motherland whichworks across film, commercials and music videos. Ross’ directorial debut feature documentary Love Yourself Today, centred on the music of Damien Dempsey and had a nationwide cinematic release in Ireland. The film was nominated for an IFTA and also played all over the UK, New York andAustralia. Brian Eno quoted in relation to the film “I have seen no better film about the social value of art”. Killeen’s other films include 99 Problems and Becoming men. 99 Problems was a short documentary which looked at the murky underworld of the Dublin ice cream business. The film premiered atTribeca film festival in New York and won the audience award at Dublin International Film Festival. It also played at Sheffield FilmFestival and Raindance in the UK. Becoming Men was Killeen’s first short film and put his company, Motherland on the map as a maker of authentic documentary films that resonate with an audience. Ross has two more feature documentaries in development.Asbestos As a prolific Irish artist, Asbestos has been producing street art since 2003, utilising masks to convey narratives and elicit emotions.His works have been displayed worldwide, and he was nominated for “Best International Street Art 2021” for a mural that drew attention to thehousing crisis in Ireland. In 2022 he collaborated with the band Idles at Roskilde festival in Denmark on a project called “I Beat Myself Up” where theysmashed piñatas off their heads to encourge people to talk about their mental health. His art delves into society’s fixation with self-image while using anonymity to become more transparent and candid in his creations. Notably, he reveals his own vulnerabilities, providing insight into what it means to be human. By opening up to the public his work starts a conversation with the viewer making their contribution essential to his work and giving them a voice in it.

Duncan CowlesDirector Duncan Cowles takes us on a journey through male mental health, stigma and taboo in the UK. Part road trip, part coming-of-middle-age tale, Cowles’ laconic humour and frank approach to his subject proves effective in exploring aspects of masculinity that all too often are little discussed. Admitting that he is not always open and intimate in his conversations with loved ones, the BAFTA-winning Scottish filmmaker sets out to define masculinity in the modern age – what makes men tick and, more importantly, coming to terms with all aspects of health, both physical and mental. The questions asked in Silent Men may seem simple, but their answers betray underlying tensions, as Cowles’ subjects make all too clear. The film grapples with being able to express oneself as a man – to become someone at peace with themselves, their life and the ones they love.Duncan Cowles Duncan Cowles is a BAFTA Scotland Award winning documentary filmmaker whose short films are often known for their comedic, self-aware and sensitive approach. His shorts have gained significant online exposure through screenings at A-list festivals such as BFI London Film Festival and online platforms such as Short of the Week, Vimeo Staff Picks, BFI Player, BBCiplayer, MUBI, It’s Nice That, TED and numerous others. Duncan has won a selection of awards at festivals such as Glasgow Short Film Festival, Open City Documentary Festival, BFI Future Film Festival, Hamburg Short Film Festival, Kyiv Short Film Festival, Szczecin European Film Festival, The Smalls and received numerous nominations including being twice shortlisted for Best British Short Film at the London Critics Circle Awards. In recent years Duncan has been commissioned to write and direct documentaries for Channel 4, STV, BBC Scotland, BBC Radio 4, TED and Adobe. In 2020 Duncan was commissioned to make x6 30minute episodes of his own new documentary TV series ‘Scary Adult Things’ which looks at the struggles of the millennial generation for BBC Scotland and aired in March 2021.In 2017 Duncan founded his own production company Relative Films Ltd to facilitate the production of his first feature documentary project which he initially took to IDFA Academy before being awarded development funding from Screen Scotland & The Whickers. The film is currently nearing the end of post-production and due to be completed in 2023.Duncan has also hosted a range of documentary filmmaking workshops for all ages for University of Edinburgh, BFI, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Mental Health Foundation, Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow Youth Film Festival, Flatpack Film Festival, VIS Vienna Shorts, Screen Academy Scotland and more.Duncan graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a 1st Class degree and a specialisation in documentary film, winning an Award for Distinguished work by the University upon graduating. He then went on to work for the internationally renowned Scottish Documentary Institute for three years on training programs and feature documentaries such as I am Breathing, Future My Love, Pablo’s Winter, Seven Songs for a Long Life, Donkeyote, Time Trial, Becoming Animal & Nae Pasaran. He also served for five years as part of the programming team for selecting feature documentaries for the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2013-2018. 

Martin Lennon is Podcast (buymeacoffee.com)

Martin Lennon is Podcast (buymeacoffee.com)