Geoffrey MaCnab

As Joe Dante’s singular horror-comedy is re-released in cinemas for its 40th anniversary, Geoffrey Macnab looks at the unlikely backstory behind a true original

When he was a young man, director Daniel Abma dreamed of being a school teacher, but when it came to the crunch the responsibility seemed too enormous. Nevertheless, he always retained an enormous admiration for teachers and caregivers, who are now the subject of his new doc, selected for German Competition in Leipzig. “Now I am a filmmaker, I can contribute something to the cause by showing them my respect by making a portrait of the important work they do,” Abma tells BDE of his subjects.

If you go to Niscemi in Sicily, you'll find both picturesque woodland and, very incongruously, a US base housing a Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite ground station.

In their new documentary Tarantism Revisited (premiering in German competition at DOK Leipzig) filmmaking team Anja Dreschke and Michaela Schäuble

The selected projects have already made an impact at other European development and training initiatives

Swiss director Anna Thommen first met the protagonist of her new film Naima (screening in DOK Leipzig Audience Competition and sold by Utopia Docs) in an unusual way.

“I think her story mirrors the stories of thousands of people, artists who came to New York to fulfil their dreams – and I am actually one of them!” Dvořáková tells BDE.

It's now almost 30 years since German-Turkish filmmaker Aysun Bademsoy was told by a friend about a Turkish women's football team in Berlin and decided to make a film about them.

Three years after his near-fatal horse riding accident, which left him paralysed from the neck down, the ‘Superman’ star appeared in what proved to be his final film: a made-for-TV remake of a Hitchcock classic. And despite its radical pleasures, it’s been lost to time, writes Geoffrey Macnab

Enric Miralles was the visionary Barcelona-born architect whose commissions include the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh and the Igualada