Doc Talk Podcast Welcomes Young Directors Behind Oscar Contenders ‘Under The Flags, The Sun’ & ‘Remaining Native’
Two emerging filmmakers are entering the Oscar race this year with their feature directorial debuts.
Paraguayan director Juanjo Pereira won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlin Film Festival with his documentary Under the Flags, the Sun. It examines the period from 1954-89, when his country was ruled by the military dictator Gen. Alfredo Stroessner. The strongman, who enjoyed the backing of successive U.S. administrations as a reliable anti-communist, routinely disappeared perceived leftist political opponents, killing and torturing an untold number of them.
Paraguay has chosen the documentary as its official entry for the Oscar Best International Feature Film category. On today’s edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, Pereira tells us how Paraguay became a linchpin of the clandestine Operation Condor program coordinated by the CIA that conducted “dirty wars” in multiple Latin American countries during that Cold War period. Pereira also reveals how notorious Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele found refuge in Paraguay and – it’s believed – became a personal physician to Stroessner.
We spoke with Pereira at the Camden International Film Festival in Maine, which has become a key destination for both emerging and established directors. While there, Doc Talk also interviewed Paige Bethmann, an Indigenous filmmaker who screened her documentary Remaining Native, which also plans to qualify for the Oscar race this year. Her film centers on Ku Stevens, a 17-year-old Indigenous athlete who grew up on a Paiute reservation in Nevada. Despite a lack of access to much in the way of support, he managed to become the best distance runner in his state – so talented that earning a scholarship to the University of Oregon seemed within reach.
The film explores Stevens’ internal conflict over hoping to leave the reservation to join the elite Oregon track program, which would mean everything for his running future but would take him away from his roots. “Remaining Native,” for him, involved paying tribute to his great-grandfather, a survivor of the notorious Indian boarding school system who made a 50-mile trek as a boy to escape the school and get back to his home.
That’s on the latest episode of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s senior documentary editor. The show is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
