Pietra Brettkelly’s Doco Premieres in Venice

Multi-award-winning director and producer Pietra Brettkelly’s documentary A Flickering Truth, filmed in Afghanistan, made its premiere at the 2015 Venice International Film Festival.

New Zealand-born Brettkelly’s 2008 film The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins won the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award at the Sundance Film Festival and screened at over 100 film festivals.

“As Afghanistan teeters on an unpredictable future, A Flickering Truth unwraps the world of three dreamers and 8000 hours of film covered by the dust of 100 years of war,” Brettkelly explains.

“Can these men who risked their lives to protect this vessel of culture restore the record of Afghanistan’s colorful and diverse past? And what surprises will emerge from the cloak of time?”

“It might sound crazy, but filming in a conflict zone, in Afghanistan, and being a female filmmaker was the easy part,” she says. “I found people open and understanding of the importance and beauty of filmic storytelling.

“I have previously filmed in Libya interviewing Colonel Gadaffi, South Sudan after the longest running civil war in African history, the Amazon during anti-logging protest times. I don’t go into conflict zones, without knowing we will sometimes be in danger – some instances that we know of and can prepare for. But Afghanistan is an unpredictable place.

“And yes, at times I did feel a sense of danger.”

Brettkelly, who also wrote, produced and directed Maori Boy Genius, is the 2010 recipient of the New Zealand Film Commission Producer’s Award.

Original article by Freja Dam, Indie Wire, September 4, 2015.