Cannes Diaries: Raoul Peck, Nanette Burstein, Mahdi Fleifel & more
Welcome to Doc Voices from Pure Nonfiction, a weekly newsletter that expands on the podcast hosted by Thom Powers to bring you reports from documentary communities around the world.
A Note from Anisha
I'm thrilled to introduce the first edition of Doc Voices. Each week, we’ll bring you exclusive reports from documentary makers and industry figures from around the world. We’ll confront rising challenges in a tumultuous media business, share new strategies for sustaining careers, and celebrate films that are making an impact on audiences.
I join the Pure Nonfiction team as an ardent fan of documentaries. Born and raised in Japan to Indian parents, I’ve moved around the globe with movies as a constant passion. After earning my master's degree in the U.S. in media studies, I was fortunate to receive a fellowship in film criticism from Indiewire, RogerEbert .com, and the Sundance Institute. That set me on a path to writing about films for the past decade.
I'm now based in the New York area, but I look forward to using this space to connect with the global filmmaking community. In today’s newsletter, we bring news from the Cannes Film Festival, including dispatches from filmmakers Raoul Peck, Mahdi Fleifel, and Nanette Burstein who are premiering new works; and perspectives from others.
We also debut our Seen & Heard section that will shine a light on documentary events around the world. This week, we hear from Thom Powers at Millenium Docs Against Gravity in Warsaw, Chithra Jeyaram at CAAMFest in San Francisco, Lucy Walker at a DGA preview of Mountain Queen in Los Angeles. I also share some thoughts from the Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York City.
We welcome tips for coverage! Send them to: listen@purenonfiction.net.
Report From Cannes
The Cannes Film Festival gets underway this week, with 22 nonfiction films competing for the L’Œil d’or (Golden Eye) documentary jury prize. Last year, two films tied for the win, both of them innovative works from North Africa: The Mother of All Lies and Four Daughters.
Someday, I will live out my dream of visiting Cannes in person. For now, I’m living vicariously by connecting with those who are in attendance. We hear from three of this year’s filmmakers to share what the festival means to them. Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) writes about his new film Ernest Cole: Lost and Found on the esteemed South African photographer. Mahdi Fleifel previously made the 2012 DOC NYC prize winner A World Not Ours, his first-person story about a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. Now he heads to Cannes with his fiction debut, To a Land Unknown, along with a work-in-progress documentary, My Father’s House, being showcased in the market. Nanette Burstein is premiering her new film Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes. She shares a memory of her first trip to Cannes for The Kid Stays in the Picture.
We also hear from Pierre-Alexis Chevit, the head of the industry section Cannes Docs and Opal H. Bennett of POV, who will attend the market to scout projects. (Anisha Jhaveri)
The revelation of 60,000 lost photographs
“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found chronicles the life and work of one of the first Black freelance photographers in South Africa, whose early pictures, shocking at the time of their first publication, revealed to the world Black life under apartheid. Cole fled South Africa in 1966 and lived in exile in the U.S., where he photographed extensively in New York City, as well as the American South, fascinated by the ways this country could be at times so vastly different, and at others, eerily similar to the segregated culture of his homeland.
During this period, he published his landmark book of photographs denouncing apartheid, House of Bondage, which, while banned in South Africa, cemented Cole’s place as one of the great photographers of his time at the age of 27. After his death, more than 60,000 of his 35mm film negatives were inexplicably discovered in a bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. Most considered these forever lost, especially the thousands of pictures Cole shot in the U.S. Telling his own story through his writings, the recollections of those closest to him, and the lens of his uncompromising work, the film is a reintroduction of a pivotal Black artist to a new generation.
When I was contacted by Ernest Cole’s nephew and head of the family trust fund for a possible film project on his uncle, I did a quick search to discover that I had known this man my entire political life, but had never really acknowledged who he was, nor understood the rare, prodigious, and utterly modern photographer he was. Cole’s long, often painful and tedious journey in America reminds me of a time in my life when my political commitment and artistic stamina were forged. I profoundly feel and treasure his human perspective on the facts of life and his sharp insight into our stark contradictions. I couldn’t be prouder to have the opportunity to ensure that Ernest Cole's essential story is told.“ (Raoul Peck)
Defying invisibility: Palestinian stories at Cannes
“This year's Cannes is bound to be a surreal and strange event in light of the ongoing atrocities in Palestine. In between bearing witness to the horrific images bombarding us on a daily basis, my producer Geoff Arbourne and I will attempt our best to present my new, and very personal, feature documentary My Father’s House. At the same time, it’s especially moving to us to be presenting the only Palestinian film, my first narrative feature, To a Land Unknown at Cannes in Director's Fortnight. As Palestinians, we challenge media stereotypes, but more importantly, we defy invisibility, a struggle we’ve faced since the beginning. Our stories are needed now more than ever.” (Mahdi Fleifel)
On legendary storytelling and memories from Cannes past
“In the next few days, I am headed to the Cannes film festival to premiere my latest film, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes. It’s not my first rodeo at this prestigious festival. I went there as a young punk to showcase a different Hollywood biography, The Kid Stays in the Picture, about the legendary movie producer Robert Evans.
With Graydon Carter, the renowned editor of Vanity Fair, as my producer, and all of Bob’s powerful Hollywood allies in tow, it was quite the star-studded screening, especially for a documentary film. After the larger-than-life red-carpet experience walking up the steps of the Palais, we entered the theater. My co-director Brett Morgen, Bob and I came to the stage to introduce the film. We let Bob take over the mic and indeed he did. He talked about how in his fifty-year movie career, he had never been to Cannes. He spoke about this in great detail, about how with each film he made his most coveted goal was to attend Cannes and it NEVER EVER EVER EVER happened. In fact, he had never stepped foot in Cannes, he emphatically stated.
Brett and I stood behind him on stage, making anxious eye contact, biting our lips. Because we knew that in 45 minutes, the audience would see an entire chapter in our film where Bob talks exhaustively about his experience at the Cannes film Festival in the 1980s. But that was Bob Evans. It was the perfect metaphor for Hollywood storytelling and one salient point in our movie about the industry: When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend.” (Nanette Burstein)
Championing the values of a global community
“Since 2012, Cannes Docs has developed a dedicated venue and tailored industry program to feature creative documentary filmmakers and professionals. Its inception not only immediately met a pending need for this type of offering within the Cannes market, it also went beyond a strict industry approach to enable the doc community to finally get together in Cannes, to meaningfully network & connect, to feel welcomed and nurtured – and to advocate for documentary cinema and all kinds of forward-thinking values that I feel our community has always had at heart.
The program has been constantly expanding since, thanks to key sponsors and contributors like the Ford Foundation and DAE (Documentary Association of Europe), as well as a growing team of extremely committed collaborators — starting with my colleague, Babette Dieu — who constantly push the program to think beyond traditional frameworks and encompass fundamental contemporary challenges and struggles, which I think are vital elements to bring to what can otherwise be a relatively institutional Cannes context.
This is my 10th year working on the program and I’m excited to welcome over 200 delegates this month, for a total global community of 500+ doc-curious professionals in Cannes. For six days at the Marché du Film, we create a space for doc makers to meet sales agents, festival programmers, and other experts — and to feel understood by like-minded peers. We also showcase Docs-in-Progress (project alumni include Bye Bye Tiberias, Twice Colonized, and Yintah, all of which went on to garner acclaim). The events culminate on May 21 with Doc Day.” (Pierre-Alexis Chevit)
A Docs-in-Progress juror on what makes Cannes Docs special
“My first presence at Cannes Docs was two years ago, via an invite from the intrepid Pierre-Alexis. He pitched it as being distinct from the Doc Corner of old, as “a useful and meaningful place to meet and connect for the doc film industry” while attending the world’s most prolific market for film. Amazingly, this proved to be one of the few instances I’ve experienced of truth in advertising.
2021’s visit involved my collaboration with the Cannes Docs team to present a keynote on a service-forward approach to filmmaker development, and I was able to meet with artists from around the globe in a single roundtable. Add to that the must-attend Docs Day — offering conversations with documentary luminaries and panels with leading industry — and it was clear Cannes Docs was an event full of choice experiences to those in attendance. We made it our business for AmDoc to return.
After a yearlong hiatus, I’m glad to be back as AmDoc’s representative, this time as a juror, and with our organization as the sponsor of a panel on ethics and access in documentary filmmaking. We’re excited to add our voice to the industry who come to Cannes Docs both to learn and to contribute.” (Opal H. Bennett)
First-person reports from Mountain Queen at DGA, CAAMfest, Millennium Docs Against Gravity and the return of the Margaret Mead Film Festival
Mountain Queen at DGA | Los Angeles, CA
by Lucy Walker (Filmmaker)
I've been a proud member of the Director's Guild for over a decade, and attended so many terrific screenings and thoughtful conversations in their awesome theater, but none of my films have ever screened there - not The Crash Reel, which was nominated for a DGA Award, or either of my Academy-nominated films. They just don't screen many docs. To compound the feeling that it'd never happen, every month their magazine is laid out with photos of the directors of the screened movies down the margins of each page, and too many of these pages have five photos of male directors and none of female directors. So when I was invited to screen my new film Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa there on May 9, and have a conversation on stage with dear peer Ondi Timoner, I felt strangely moved.
But it's one thing to show your movie, and another to have anyone to show it to, so I was overjoyed when we had a full house of all sorts of directors — not just of documentaries, and not just people who knew me, but a theater full of people with the rumpled look of having actually survived directed movies, and still loving watching them and talking about our craft. It was a dream of being surrounded by smart colleagues and being taken seriously as a director. But I knew that with Ondi we'd be laughing all the way through our serious conversation, and it'd be fun and frank. And because Ondi is always on it, she's turning our conversation into a podcast as well.
CAAM Fest | San Francisco Bay Area
by Chithra Jeyaram (Filmmaker)
Just back from CAAMFest, and wow! It was a whirlwind of stories, community — and let's not forget, food! The Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) curated a phenomenal lineup of films that explored the depths of identity, dreams, and what truly matters, resonating on a deep level.
The Filmmaker Summit was equally inspiring. The A-Doc Impact Fellows are tackling critical issues within Asian American communities: Tanzila Ahmed's groundbreaking work maps LA's South Asian history, while Jiefei Yuan shines a light on climate displacement's impact on Queens' Asian immigrants. Vivian Chang's work empowering Philly's Chinatown residents facing displacement is a powerful example of community building in action.
The icing on the cake? A-Doc's new Our Stories, Our Voices series, premiered at CAAMFest. These micro-documentaries explore voting and civic participation within the AAPI community, including my own project, Desi Mom. Together, we'll be promoting the series on social media, film festivals, and panels, ultimately amplifying AANHPI voices and participation in the upcoming elections.
CAAMFest's stories and the vibrant community spirit left me buzzing with optimism for what's to come.
Millennium Docs Against Gravity | Warsaw, Poland
by Thom Powers (Pure Nonfiction Host)
I’m returning for my second visit to the Millennium Docs Against Gravity (MDAG) festival. Festival director Artur Liebhart and his dedicated team screen films across seven cities in Poland. Last year’s MDAG jury prize winner In the Rearview by Maciek Hamela about Ukrainian refugees went on to be selected for the Oscar shortlist.
The festival has a stunning location at the Palace of Culture and Science. It was built in 1955 as an initiative of Joseph Stalin and remains one of the tallest buildings in the European Union. Inside the festival halls, I enjoyed catching up with international visitors such as Estonian filmmaker Anna Hints (Smoke Sauna Sisterhood), the Paris-based producers Rémi Grellety and Sara Skrodzka (Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat), and the buyer for Dutch public television VPRO, Nathalie Windhorst.
My time was concentrated attending events in the Industry section skillfully led by Anna Szczypińska. Her beloved greyhound Bronia stoically roamed the room calming any filmmaker who may feel nervous to take the stage for pitching. Among the works-in-progress presented, I was especially intrigued by three titles. Leonard Cohen: Behind the Iron Curtain sets out to reveal what happened when Cohen visited Poland in 1985 and became a musical touchpoint for political change. Birdie has a gripping log line about a woman confronting “that her once beloved husband is in reality a sexual predator and brainwashing cult leader.” The producer is Małgorzata Staroń (Apolonia Apolonia). Then there is Frontline, a first person work by Ukraine's Alisa Kovalenko who captures her life as a soldier in the trenches of the ongoing war with poignancy and poeticism.
Margaret Mead Film Festival | New York City
By Anisha Jhaveri
After a pandemic hiatus, the Margaret Mead Film Festival returned to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City from May 9 to 12. Remaining true to its namesake with an anthropological slant in its documentary selections, this year’s festival further reinforced its commitment to the sharing of diverse cultures, communities, and perspectives by expanding its lineup beyond films. From Soundtrack '63 — a live, immersive multimedia experience chronicling milestones in African-American history — to a discussion on Native storytelling with filmmakers Sterlin Harjo (co-creator of Reservoir Dogs) and Erica Tremblay (Fancy Dance), and visual artist Steven Paul Judd (Echo), the four days opened up multiple entry points for conversation and connection.
I attended the closing night film, Agent of Happiness, which made its New York premiere on Sunday evening after its showing in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance earlier this year. The product of a six-year process for filmmakers Arun Bhattarai and Dorothy Zurbó, the documentary follows Bhutan bureaucrat Amber Gurung as he conducts surveys with citizens to determine the Gross National Happiness Index. Through intimate portraits of several respondents — paralleled with Amber’s own struggle with loneliness and belonging — the film probes the meaning of contentment for people in a country constitutionally obliged to promote the happiness of its people. “There’s some absurdity in measuring subjective life experiences and translating them into numbers,” Zurbó said in a post-screening Q&A, with Bhattarai adding that it felt especially compelling to tell a story “about a happiness agent in search of his own happiness.”
Handled with gentle humor and plenty of heart — and gorgeously composed to capture the striking mountainscapes of Bhutan — Agent of Happiness won Mead’s first-ever Audience Award at the festival’s conclusion. Other winners included Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, who received the 2024 Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award for their project, National Geographic Documentary Films’ Sugarcane.
Revisiting a chat with Cannes 2017's L'Œil d'or winners
In anticipation of this year's Cannes documentary award, the L'Œil d'or (to be announced on May 24th), I’ve been looking back at past recipients and found particular delight in this 2017 Pure Nonfiction podcast episode with the late auteur Agnès Varda and photographer/artist JR, who took home that year's prize for their collaboration, Faces Places. Listen as they regale Thom (who, incidentally, served on the Cannes Docs jury that year) with reflections from their travels across rural France, becoming friends through filmmaking, and Varda’s visceral reaction to the standing ovation the film received at its premiere.
Expect more exciting voices and further reportage from Cannes in next week's newsletter. To send us suggestions, questions, or feedback, write in to listen@purenonfiction.net. We'd love to hear from you.
Until next time,
Anisha