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Chai latte and Salt’s new October 2020 episode by Janyl Jusupjan with Andrea Kuhn, the director of the Nurnberg International Human Rights Film Festival.

My talk with Andrea Kuhn is simple and straightforward. We easily move from jokes, laughter, vodka, yes, vodka, to film, Covid-19, festivals, cultural occupation, and other important issues. Andrea was a member of the jury of the largest LGBT film award, the Teddy Award of the Berlinale Film Festival. Andrea is concerned with difficulties like travel and screening restrictions for her festival. She talks also about solidarity and how to support filmmakers; including those who lost, so to say, their films to the COVID-related festival and screening cancelations. There is hardly any money in documentary film; so filmmakers make films because they believe in what they do. This is something we have to remember. In Central Asia, there is no funding framework in place for documentaries, especially for independent creative films. And I appreciate that Andrea talks openly about the responsibility of Western filmmakers and producers. She warns that when you come from a first world country, you take something which cannot be replaced. (I have to warn that I made an error when I told Andrea that a Kyrgyz woman sits on her table. I wanted to say “A doll dressed in a Kyrgyz national dress, sits on her table!) You can contact Andrea at her festival’s page www.nihrff.de. 

If you liked this episode please share it with a filmmaker friend, if you have one, or any other, who might be interested in the matters we discussed.

Many thanks to Damon Kutzin for his selfless support for Chai Latte and Salt production!

Have a wonderful rest of autumn 2020.

Janyl Jusupjan

www,janyljusupjan.com