In this episode of The Archive Room, we’re joined by Berlin-based archive producer Mona El-Bira for a deep, unfiltered conversation about archive-led documentary filmmaking — where history, ethics, and storytelling collide. Mona has worked on some of the most ambitious and politically complex archival films of recent years, including Riefenstahl (2024), a feature documentary constructed entirely from archival material drawn from the vast, previously inaccessible personal estate of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. She also discusses her work on The Six Billion Dollar Man, the forthcoming film from Eugene Jarecki exploring the story of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Dominic Dare (00:23) So welcome to the Archive Room. My name's Dominic Dare and this is my co-host, Sandra Coelho Sandra (00:29) Hello? Dominic Dare (00:30) Today's guest we're delighted to have with us, Mona El-Bira Mona, welcome to the pod. Mona El-Bira (00:36) Thank you so much for having me. Dominic Dare (00:37) To give you a little bit of background, since 2017, Mona has been working as a freelance archive producer and researcher based in Berlin. Her work spans some of the most ambitious archive-driven documentaries of recent years. Her latest projects include Riefenstahl, a 2024 feature built entirely from archival material, exploring the legacy and extensive estate of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. And then coming up, the $6 billion man, which is Eugene Jarecki's forthcoming documentary, Tracing the Saga of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. So, Mona, rather delighted to have you on the pod today. Thanks for joining us. Sandra (01:12) We will. Mona El-Bira (01:15) Thank you so much. I'm really curious to be here. Yeah, let's get into it. Dominic Dare (01:20) So we like to place people when they join. can you just let us know how you got started into archival producing and, what drew you to it as a career? Mona El-Bira (01:29) Yeah, well, I am a bit off, you know, I came sideways into this basically because I once moved to Berlin to study art history and I did that for eight years. know, Germany, can study endlessly and I'm glad I made it to finish with eight years, but I did. And I was working in the arts for quite a while. I was like working in museums. I was curating for quite a bit and the art scene was slightly disillusioning. So I was at some point really about to write my PhD and took a step back and was like, this really what I want to commit my whole life to? Because this is kind of what, you know, when you want to make it in the world of art, this is what you have to do. And I kind of took a break and thought, okay, what else is there? Because this was always my plan A from school times. And then I was really reconsidering and I thought, what is my second passion? Because I had now... basically ruined the passion of art. So I was like, what else? What is next? And I ended up doing an internship in a production company. then they also told me I was probably their second oldest intern. was already mid-twenties and they were not really used to having someone that old. I think their oldest intern was like 60. So I was second place. I thought I would maybe be interested in becoming a producer, but Dominic Dare (02:28) Ha ha ha. Sandra (02:45) Yeah. Dominic Dare (02:45) you Mona El-Bira (02:50) I also, watched them closely and it seemed very, you know, everyone was always angry with them. They're always on the phone. It did not look super appealing, but I met, I met someone, I met my colleague, Monika Preischl that I work with now a lot as well. And she was already working in archive research for 15, plus 15 years. And she kind of took me on and was like, maybe this could be something for you. We started working on Andres Freyert's first, not first project, but the first project I worked with him on. There was a film about Joseph Beuys, German artist. And this is basically how I slowly got into this job that I didn't even know existed. And it really was, it really struck a chord with me because it really kind of fits to what I liked doing in academia, the research part. and really getting into the sources and really figuring out where something actually comes from with my second passion film. And then I stick to it. And since then, I've always been a freelancer, which is scary sometimes, but also gives you lot of freedom. Dominic Dare (03:51) You know, it's really interesting. We've spoken to quite a few archive producers on the pod and so many people have kind of fallen into this and have found either a mentor or somebody who's kind of taken them under their wing and taken them through it. it's, there is no sort of hard and fast rule for people to join. I mean, you know, it's so, so let's kind of get into the craft of it a bit. I was lucky enough to see Riefenstahl, which came out over, it came out relatively recently and it's certainly on the long list for the BAFTAs for this year, an incredible film. Could you, I'd like to talk about that from the, know, the, the idea of how you organize and how you approach source materials. But for people that don't know, can you explain who Leni Riefenstahl is and what, what her, her name means across Europe and specifically in Germany. Mona El-Bira (04:33) Yeah, mean, Leni Riefenstahl is maybe the most, the most known female director in Germany. She was born in, I think, 1902 and got over 102 years old. So she lived across the whole century and she got really, really famous with making the Nazi propaganda movies, which is Triumph of the Will, which is Sieg der Freiheit. No idea how you call this in English. which is also Olympia. She was basically responsible for the very well-known aesthetic of this regime in film. I think her movies are still being studied in film schools today. I remember when I was in school, I also watched her movie, Triumph of the World, but it's always with a big background of... this is propaganda, so that no one can mistake it for something else, even though she tried her whole life to kind of get her reputation back. That was in Germany very much always the one of a Nazi film. Dominic Dare (05:30) I mean, the film is a sort of study in amazing talent, amazing films that you didn't realise. I remember seeing footage of Jesse Owens for the Olympics and thinking, wow, that's shot beautifully. And why isn't everything else like that? And then you realise this is from, at the time, one of the most expensive documentaries ever made, funded by the Third Reich. So, know, so, but a long, nuanced, difficult, complex person. what struck me anyway was immediately watching the film at the beginning. Mona El-Bira (05:48) with you. Dominic Dare (05:58) I'm like seeing all these stills and original negative and like original photos. I'm going like, well, hang on a minute. Like what archives gave you all this stuff? Like, where'd you get it? And then it became obvious that you'd got access to this huge estate. So what was left of our life So just talk us from the beginning, like how did that happen? And then what were you confronted with when you first started the project? Mona El-Bira (06:15) Yeah. That's exactly it. I think the striking part about this project is the fact that this is the first time her whole archive has been accessed and is being made public like that. Because I think she died and, you know, she died, she left all of her estate and she was really someone who kept everything, supposedly. She left this to her longtime partner, Horst Kettner. And then when he died in 2016, that was left to the housekeeper who was also a very close friend of Riefenstahl. And she then was like, okay, this has to go to the state of Germany. And it ended up going to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which is basically a German federal government institution that oversees over 27 museums in Berlin and around Berlin, like the state library and the state museum, et cetera. And this estate all went to the state of Berlin. And the producer, Sandra Maischberger, because she has done interviews with Leni Riefenstahl before, has gotten the right to be the first to access it and distribute it into a movie, make it a movie basically, together with Andres Feil, the director. But only under the condition that the whole team is helping to access the estate. So there was like three museums involved. There was the state library. There was the Museum of Cinema in Germany and there was the Photo Museum. So every single item of her estate went to a different institution. And it was like over 700 moving boxes full of letters, scripts, notes, calendars. Of course, movie reels, private movie reels, directed movies in different parts, different segments, new edits that people didn't see before. And of course, because she was a prolific photographer, huge amount of photos, originals, prints, contact sheets, tapes from phone calls she recorded. It's, was really, it is a gigantic estate and it is supposed to be made public as well. It's just a long-term project for the state of Berlin to figure out how to do this and also how to do this in like an ethical way. You know, you cannot just put all of this on the internet because a lot of it is of course propaganda from the second world war. Dominic Dare (08:24) Mm. Mona El-Bira (08:31) So basically, my colleague, Monika Preischl, and I, as well as Christiana Kemmerer, who used to work for the State Library and became a real expert on the documents of Leni Riefenstahl, we started organizing the assessment in cooperation with each of the institutions that the segment went to. So we basically worked through the estate. I scanned a lot of photos, I scanned a lot of documents, I listened to all of her tapes, she recorded phone calls in and outgoing, she recorded her answering machine. I transcribed all of that. It was basically actual archiving, which you kind of don't often get to do in this job, you know? Like we always end up working with the people who are doing the archiving and this... In this situation, we were the ones who were trying to make this usable for a movie afterwards, while also keeping it in a way that actual archivists would do it. Because we were working in such close cooperation with the institutions. So for example, you have to archive everything in the order that it came. Because the way that Leni Riefenstahl put it down, in which box she put what together, also contains the information. You cannot just reorder it and be like, this would be the most handy for the movie or for the editing. You have to keep it in its world and in its universe to not mess with what information could be in why she put this together in a box or why maybe she decided, maybe she took something from the 40s out in the later part and put it back in a box that was from the last five years. Why did she do that? It's always like little hints. that you can, the traces you don't want to mess with when you do this. So it was definitely like a very sudden dive into the world of actual archiving. Dominic Dare (10:21) I mean, it's just a mind boggling size of a project. The question was really going to be about this kind of narrative story, because if, know, does the archive drive that or is the script written? How do those two combine? So the actual story, is it driven by what you're finding or is there a script that you start out with? You know, for people that don't know how this works, how did it work for you guys? Mona El-Bira (10:44) It kind of comes together. Like you cannot approach in a state like this with a ready-made idea. Like it would, I think it would be historically incorrect to do that. You have to always be like, what is the archive telling us? Because, you know, you, you maybe want to come with the idea that she was, you know, can you prove that she knew about the Holocaust before, even though she always said she didn't know anything, is there any way we can prove it? But you kind of have to work with what the archive or what her estate is offering. And also, think another level to this was that all this happened in the middle of the pandemic. Like, basically, we started working on this already in 2018. Then we worked a bit more on it in 2019. And then in March 2020, I was sitting in the state library, documents, scanning actually her memoirs that she had. handwritten in several editions to make them usable for the edit later and then the pandemic hit and we all had to like stop and go home. I remember very well sitting in lockdown reading, spending every day in the mind of Leni Riefenstahl reading, figuring out and this is why I'm telling this story, figuring out what she crossed out in another edition, what she omitted in another edition. Dominic Dare (11:50) Yeah. Mona El-Bira (12:02) What she brought back in, it was little traces of how she revised her own story. And this is something that you cannot write in a script first. You have to figure that out and then feed it to the director and the editor and see what they make of it. Dominic Dare (12:18) Makes complete sense. mean, I think one of the wonderful things about the film, not really knowing anything about her coming in blind, was the ambiguity of her character and the rewriting of her own story and the lies and not lies. What's your overall opinion? Because I found as a viewer, I was constricted throughout. We saw these incredible photos when she goes to Africa, these stills and this kind of almost... you know, just beautiful photography way ahead of its time. And I was like, that kind of drew me back into her a little bit more because I realized the extensive talent of her. And then on the flip side, you've got this incredible footage. I think it's when she's talking about her time when she visits with Goebbels and she doesn't realize she's being recorded. That, know, there's a couple of bits that you've got also at the very end, which is holding one of the last things she's holding a mirror, trying looking at her light and how and it's a tragic kind of Mona El-Bira (13:01) Yeah. Dominic Dare (13:11) portrayal of her, but where did you find those extra bits? There was these kind of like unseen footage. Was that in her archive or did you get those from the broadcasters? Mona El-Bira (13:20) The one you referred to with the interview, think it is one of Ray Muller, he did this movie called The Power of Images. I'm just freely translating the title now, but it's called like that, The Power of Images. And they've given us access to their B-roll. So we basically had behind the scenes things that she stopped, you know, so there was... Dominic Dare (13:29) Okay. I see. Mona El-Bira (13:43) This was basically the second part of it. We had for the one part, the universe that she created in her estate. And then of course we had to feed it with external archive with interviews that we found with the BBC or with CBC with basically everything that came. That was maybe like, she also collected a lot of VHS. She liked a lot of the interviews were in VHS tapes and we had to find the original sources and where it came from. So we just tried to give the outside perspective as well and collected all of that. I can, you know, sometimes it felt to me going through a state like opening the tomb of the Pharaoh and you're concerned you're gonna be cursed. Because it's just spending so much time with her and this complex of a person she was is... Dominic Dare (14:25) what? Mona El-Bira (14:34) I also felt torn so many times because the way I got to know her from my German education is, you know, she was clearly committed to Hitler's cause. She was clearly someone who was in the, on that side of history. And getting to know her as a person, I was really torn because sometimes I also was impressed by how much she accomplished as a woman in her time. Like she was a dancer, she was an actress doing her own stunts, she was a dialer, she was a director, she was a photographer, she was an editor. She wronged a lot of people on the way, but I think she was, I think she wasn't like two helicopter crashes in her life. And she survived all of that. Sometimes it's really a moment where I'm like crazy what she actually accomplished. in that time as a woman, often being the only woman on set. But then it's pretty quickly she, you know, pulls you back and says something about how she sees art and politics as something completely different and how she never took a moment of responsibility for what her movies actually meant, you know. They were watched in school in that time. 20 million Germans watched them and saw them and were... drawn into the aesthetic and the monumentalism of fascism. And she was really not making, she was really never trying to hide that she was fully committed to this cause. Even though she was always trying to also say, know, if someone else had asked her to make a movie, Stalin had asked her, she would have also done it. She's really, like, she really is really much relying on this idea of being apolitical. Dominic Dare (15:52) I-I-I-I- Mona El-Bira (16:05) and being not someone who can be held responsible because she was just one of many Germans who believed in Hitler like other people did, like diplomats did, like the whole world did, as she says. Dominic Dare (16:15) I I think this is actually the ultimate beauty of the film is that like you there is this ambiguity. And I felt exactly the same way. just there's some of the stuff when she goes, I had I want to say it's thirty four cameramen. might be wrong, but, know, they're all male cameramen and she's managing all these people. And it's just incredible for the time. So how how how many of them were you in terms of organizing? all the material across the three museums. How many actually on the film was in your team then? Just yourself and Monika or? Mona El-Bira (16:43) It was myself, Monika, and my colleague Christiane for the documents. And then when we were scanning and accessing, making everything available, we worked with lot of students from film students who we set up in teams to do the scanning process and everything. And then there was in each institution one person that was our person of contact. But basically, the main team on the archive side was us three. And then of course, Andres Veiel as a director and his editors. And this was basically how it came together. Dominic Dare (17:16) So just from a kind of visual point of view, if you are effectively recording and organizing her history along with the museums, did you get the opportunity to do some restoration throughout? Was that part of it? the film and the materials that you found in great condition, was there any of that kind of involved? Or did you just use them as they were? Mona El-Bira (17:37) A lot of it was in great condition actually. If there was something that should be restored, that was something we gave over to the museums, because they were the ones who had the actual skills, and in the end it ends with it's in their heads. So this part was basically taken over by the experts for that. And we kind of stayed with the movie part, except for some of the film reels needed touch-ups. we need to digitize them to use them in the movie afterwards. But this was always in close collaboration with the cinema museum. Dominic Dare (18:09) And so just so that we understand it, so does that mean that all the her material, if it's been bequeathed effectively to the German state, is what we would understand in the states, this is a public, it's now public domain? How does that work? Is it material that's owned by Germans or is it owned by her estate or is it always more complicated? Mona El-Bira (18:27) It is always more complicated in Germany, you know. Yeah, our copyright and our rights system is very, very strict. And this is also touching the many rights issues we had in licensing the material because every single piece of her estate does not mean that she has the rights to it. She had the rights. Sandra (18:29) Yeah Dominic Dare (18:29) Fair enough. Sandra (18:32) Yeah. Mona El-Bira (18:51) to many of her movies, but then there was also film reels of the movies she starred in, for example, in it. But there was a lot of, like, all of the photos that were in the estate were not all photos she took. It was also photos of her, was photos of her family, it was private photos. Every single item can be a multiplier for a right situation. So we had to check, for example, for every photo, can we figure out who took it? Do we know who's on it? Because there's the personality right. and it only expired in Germany 10 years after someone died. And as she basically took photos until, you know, until she died in the early 2000s, there can still be someone on there who has personality rights and you could afterwards be like, you didn't ask me, you know? So we had to trace all of that as well, which was quite a, it was a lengthy process. And we really wanted to make sure that there's no reason or at least diminish the risk of someone suing the production company, of course. I think in the movie, in the end, we're more than 300 pictures. The moment where the camera zooms out and you see all of the pictures basically spread out, every single one you have to check because on every single one there could be someone who could raise their hand. So you have to do that as well. And the same with... Dominic Dare (19:48) Yeah, yeah. Mona El-Bira (20:08) with the films, some of them are now in the Federal Archive in the Bundesarchiv. And that means that since the 2024, I think, or 2024, you can access them for free and you can use them for free because the Federal Archive have this new project that everything that is owned by the state of Germany until 1945 is free of charge. You only have to pay a little technical fee. Dominic Dare (20:35) see. Mona El-Bira (20:36) You what before was transit and had to be distributed by transit is now in the hands of the bundesarchiv alone and they can and they give it out for free. So this is basically a lot of the Second World War footage that you can now use. This was, this is big plus, but there's also, for example, the Olympia movie. It's still a debate if the IOC has rights to it as well, if the Federal Archive only has the rights to it because it is still in the realm of Nazi propaganda and it kind of shows as well on her movies that she is such a her career her life is such a is such a metaphor for how Germany dealt with the Third Reich with like memory culture she's really embodying that and this is also showing in how many quarrels she fought to keep the rights to her movies and to redeem herself in Germany because she was basically, you know, boycotted. No one wanted to show her films. No one wanted to give her new film years. And she was really a belligerent woman who was trying to fight for being acknowledged again, which of course in Germany never worked, but other way in the world maybe. Sandra (21:37) you Dominic Dare (21:42) And I think we all know where we can't end up with her. But anyway, I mean, it's just it's a phenomenal film. I just I'm just amazed by all the work. It's wonderful to hear. I think, you know, let's sort of change tacks a bit and let's talk about the latest project, know you and Sandra full disclaimer, working on for a long time. And I was lucky enough to see the Julian Assange, $6 billion man over the weekend and. Sandra (22:08) very lucky it doesn't come out here in the UK until the 19th so very lucky Mona El-Bira (22:12) Yeah. Dominic Dare (24:57) Again, you're an incredibly complex individual and story. Can you just talk us through how you got involved with that project? Mona El-Bira (25:05) This has also been a project that has been in the making for a very long time. You know how it is with the post-pandemic times. Sometimes years become a bit of a blur, but I feel like they have approached us already in 2022 maybe or 2021. So it's been definitely like, feel like I have been working on and off on this since a good four years and the last two years pretty constantly. The interesting or fascinating part of this movie is that the story changed so much while the movie was still in the making, because he got freed. He got freed from his prison, he could return, the movie was basically finished and then they were like, I guess we have to change it now. Because it was a bit supposed to be, like tracing him and also kind of helping to free him in a sense. And then he was freed and they... Sandra (25:45) you Dominic Dare (25:46) Ha ha ha ha. Mona El-Bira (25:55) started anew with many segments of the movie, which of course changed also our way of working with it, because now we had to go back into very recent news reports on him. And for this movie also the work as archive producer had a little bit of a different focus, because the story producers and the director and his team did so much research themselves already. that we came in and added to it. We tried to find the original sources. We tried to find things are licensable. So it was a lot of like working with a huge amount of footage that they had already sourced from everywhere and also trying to bring it a bit into order and trying to make sure that it comes into a realm of licensing in the end that you can work with with a global distribution. Dominic Dare (26:42) I mean, I was struck by the film in terms of an archival point of view, how much on air material you've got in that show. mean, there's Al Jazeera, there's all sorts in there. You know, obviously where you can do, you try and source that, but is there a fair amount of fair use involved in this film? How does that work? Mona El-Bira (26:59) Yes, there was for the German perspective as a shutter going through you when you think about fair use because we rarely do it like that. But there was no other way. For some things, was literally no other way than fair using it for a good reason. Which then everyone has to, it goes through a couple of lawyers and everyone looks at it and there's many, many eyes looking at it. And this is just the way you have to put up with it when you want to make a movie with this much that has to cover a time from constant news reporting from basically 2010 to now. And also constant news reporting from sources that might have an agenda. And that's really something with him, especially with Assange, because he was such a complex figure, also so many facets and so many people that made him out to be a public enemy, basically, that also our work changed a little from the time before he was freed and the time after he was freed because he was regarded differently. Dominic Dare (27:58) I mean, completely. mean, I cannot recommend people to see this film if they can do because it completely reevaluates a lot of your preconceptions of who Julian Assange is and how he's been treated. mean, it's a it's a terrifying film, frankly, you know, and for, you know, a lot of his choices were difficult. but but it's really a story of of persecution, frankly. And and I know I hadn't really followed this, you know. Mona El-Bira (28:12) Yeah. Yeah Dominic Dare (28:24) There's certain things that I was sort of, found quite brave with the film in terms of the footage. You elected to show the entire clip of the helicopter attack. And for people that don't know what that was, was, could you just give a little bit of, it sort of formed, I guess, the form, the first real global understanding of what WikiLeaks was doing, I think is fair to say, or got on the agenda. And it was, it's a piece of footage of a US helicopter. And if you can explain kind of a little bit about that, that would be really helpful. Mona El-Bira (28:52) Yeah, was called, it is basically gotten into the Collective Mind as the so-called Collateral Murder video, which was showing, which was released by Wikileaks in 2010 and kind of brought them on the platform of the media awareness and got a lot of, it took the media in the US by storm, this video, because it shows a drone strike in which civilians are killed. And those civilians are being, and also you hear the pilots talking about how they wait to kill them and how they basically target them. And then afterwards you can also see the people who were killed in this, which was a father with two children in a van that were basically coming to help the wounded. They also mistook someone's camera for a gun. So they also killed journalists. And this is basically, What's kind of also in my memory started the whole wait. There's a lot of work that's happening that there's also footage of. Where's all this footage? What's happening with that? And why is no one like taking, keeping track of it? Dominic Dare (29:57) It's truly shocking and horrible to watch. mean, how do you kind of protect yourself when you're going through that kind of content? Because that's tough. Mona El-Bira (30:04) Yeah, that is a very good question because this is something I struggle with as well. I have once worked on a project that was covering multiple different genocides and I was really in a time where was really thinking how do journalists protect themselves but also how do we as archive producers who get all this footage together and we were working in big team back then, we also got a lot of footage from, you know, the Hague. and stuff that has never been released to the public. And I was really struggling with finding my own way in receiving this, looking at it, how to, if you should watch it in a big screen, what day of the week you watch it, you know, it's, there's a lot of little things, austerities that you can build yourself. But what I think is the most important in this is that you have someone to talk to about it, which why is, why I'm so happy that we now have networks like GRAP or APA and colleagues that you can talk to and try to figure out how you as someone who's just watching in this terrible passive way can make this feasible for your life without getting too misanthropic about it. And it's really important. It somehow touches the question if we have Dominic Dare (31:19) Yeah. Mona El-Bira (31:25) we as archive producers also have an ethical responsibility and what we hand out. Since I worked on that, and I work with a lot of war footage, I work with a lot of Holocaust footage, I started doing comments to the editing assistants when I get footage and send them and tell them this is really explicit, look out. Because I think we have to look out for each other in this process for everyone who has to consume. all of that. And sometimes there's really days that I'm just like scrolling through Iraq war and just going through it, you know, endlessly. And you're like, am I doing this? Dominic Dare (31:59) It takes a toll. Sandra (32:00) I mean is there a project like would you would you just turn down something if it was too graphic or they were saying that you really disagreed with would you just turn it down and just say I'm not I can't work on this project is that how does it work when you choose a project to work on because these are really serious subjects that you've chosen you know Mona El-Bira (32:20) It really depends a lot on who is doing it and how I feel they are handling it. Like I don't want to work with someone who is just out to, you know, show as much of the depraveness, brutality and violence that is out there to scare people because I think there's no use in doing that. get so numb from just watching that, that it doesn't make any sense. So you really have to get a feeling on how people are going to treat what you deliver them. And these days, Sandra (32:35) Yeah. Mona El-Bira (32:48) I, after my years of experience in working with footage like this, I would rather say maybe I don't have to do it. If it's getting really into something that I feel like I will have to watch very violent footage for a longer period of time, because it sooner or later messes with your head and I want to keep my sanity for a bit. Sandra (33:08) Yeah. And do you like change, have a separate mobile number, a cell number that you keep as a separate number for these types of projects or, you know, an email and stuff? Cause I was talking to somebody else and it's just, know, like a burner phone, which is the head. So you can just turn it off afterwards. So you don't ever have to speak to these people again, you know? Dominic Dare (33:21) a phone. Yeah. Mona El-Bira (33:31) Luckily, I rarely get any of these. Like it's very, very rare that someone asks me and I'm like, I'm not sure this is a good idea. I also don't know who does all these projects, you who does all the like very like explicit true crime stuff. I don't know who does it. can compliment their nerves, but it can be, it can be really tough. But yeah, as I said, it's always great if you have networks that you can ask. So, you know, how would you even really Sandra (33:33) Thank Thank you. Yeah. Mm. Mona El-Bira (33:59) For me, really helped at some point to technically approach watching things differently. don't watch them in real... Often, I don't watch them in real speed. I watch them fastened or I watch them in a small window. I don't watch them like, you usually you get something. You're like, I'm gonna look at this. And then you're like... So now I'm watching them in a small screen, which is weirdly helping. As in, I don't know, maybe just... Dominic Dare (34:23) That's so, that's so odd. Mona El-Bira (34:25) Yeah, I can't tell you why it's helping but somehow it's helping. Maybe it diminishes it. Dominic Dare (34:29) But it's self protection, isn't it? I that's ultimately what the question is about, is you can't avoid looking at it. I remember we worked in news bureaus for many years and there was some horrible stuff that would come in over the feeds at Reuters and places and you see things that you can't forget and it's really very, especially when things are going out live. It's, yeah, months and months of looking at it. I don't know how you cope. Mona El-Bira (34:50) Absolutely. It also had like a, it has a strange, when I was in a time where I was working with way more of that footage, it had a strange effect on me, which before I felt like, you know, I always thought war is, you know, everyone knows war is real. Everyone knows people are dying in the most cruel way every single day, but it didn't have a reality, you know, it doesn't have this tangible reality. If you then start watching this and watch it and watch it and watch it, You would think at some point you get desensitized, but for me it was the opposite. I was suddenly way more sensitized to the basically individual tragedy of war and loss. And I didn't expect that. For example, I can't watch any action or scary, like, cruel horror movies or anything like that anymore at all. Like, I have a hard time now watching Soprano, someone gets shot and I'm like, no. Sandra (35:39) you Dominic Dare (35:41) wow. That's, but that's It's, you know, it's such a, you know, it's one of the joys of watching documentaries is that you give yourself two hours of time to sit down and consume a subject matter. And that film was, was enlightening. It was complicated from an archival point of view. Again, another huge, huge undertaking. You've done some amazing films. I mean, we've got a little round, Sandra. Should we move into a bit of light relief from all of the world at war? I'll let Sandra take over. Sandra (36:03) Yeah, this is a yeah to give you a of a Mona El-Bira (36:10) Sorry. Sandra (36:13) Simona, this is just a quick fire round, quick questions, fast answers, and this is bit of fun to get your thoughts on the industry as a whole. Mona El-Bira (36:17) Yeah, okay. Yes. Sandra (36:25) Fair use, saviour or nightmare? Mona El-Bira (36:28) For me it's a nightmare. I have to say, I'm too, I'm this good in Germany for it not being a nightmare. I can't believe it works. I just can't trust it, but I guess some of it does. Sandra (36:30) you Okay, biggest rights headache music logos or on screen talent Mona El-Bira (36:45) on-screen talent. It's because I stay away from music and I stay away from logos But I often am based off on-screen talent. Sandra (36:46) Okay. So what do you do when you have zero budget for archive? Mona El-Bira (36:57) I'm really trying to convince them that this is a great project and needs to be done. And then I just try to keep doing it, try to push a little friendly, friendly little pushes and not just... Sandra (37:01) you Exactly. What phrase gives you more anxiety? We can't clear that or we can't find it. Mona El-Bira (37:13) We can't find it because it could always be fake. Dominic Dare (37:16) Mm-mm. Sandra (37:18) Budget or time? Which one hurts more? Mona El-Bira (37:20) Let's turn the time this course. Sandra (37:22) time. One thing every director should know before they hire an archive producer. Mona El-Bira (37:31) We gotta be painfully honest. Sandra (37:33) Okay and who or what would you like to research next? Mona El-Bira (37:39) I have a soft spot for the paranormal. If anyone ever wants to do a serious alien documentary, I'm there. Please, please ask me. Sandra (37:42) Yeah. Dominic Dare (37:44) I like it Sandra (37:51) Love it. Well done. Dominic Dare (37:51) That's brilliant. We didn't even get a chance to talk about Gladbeck, which is everybody's got to see that as well, which is. Sandra (37:56) Oh my god, I watched that the other day and I have to say, what a mad story. Mona El-Bira (38:02) That's crazy, Mom. Yeah, it is, it really is. Sandra (38:07) can I just ask, how did you cope with that amount of archive? Mona El-Bira (38:12) I love copying with a lot of archive. That's my favorite thing about it. Like if someone is telling me this project is going to have like a terabyte, two terabytes, I'm like, bring it on. I love systemizing it. I love trying to keep it in mind. It's like really the robot in me that comes out when that happens. And this is really, I don't know how the edit room copes with it, but on our side, this is one of the funnest things of this job for me. Sandra (38:22) Yeah. the archive must have led the story in the sense of it because obviously you know the story as a German you would have known that story. I don't think many people outside of Germany really knew the story beforehand but I presume when you looked at the archive that told the story in itself right? Mona El-Bira (38:47) Hmm. 100%. This is the way, you know, we also research it. We researched day by day, every minute of the day, basically. You want to find what, because it was the first, you know, like live feed of a crime like that on TV. And like so many people in Germany watched it live on TV that there was reports about it all the time. And as this was back in a time where it was like not a live feed on YouTube, most of it was retained. Sandra (39:10) Yeah. Yeah. Mona El-Bira (39:22) So we could actually access a lot of it and build this timeline of, you know, 12.05, 12.07, 12.08. They go, they take a car, they found the hostages, etc. So it was actually possible to rebuild the timeline of this. Sandra (39:38) So amazing. Dominic Dare (39:39) It's it's it's been a while since I've seen it. I mean, it's blow you away gripping live hostage crisis in Germany in the 80s with journalists getting on and off buses. It's the most mental film I've seen in years. I loved it. I loved it. so, you know, what's what's next? What's you? You've got projects coming up. Mona El-Bira (39:56) It's actually a little break. I have one project working on, which is a bit about like the history of women in comedy in Germany, which is in its final stages, but also has lot of rights issues. But after that, how it is as a freelancer, you'll see what's next. But I'm also looking forward to it to like, you know. It was a very busy year. I'm really, really happy about that, but I do really need vacation too. Sandra (40:21) Yeah. Dominic Dare (40:21) I only imagine. Well, we wish you all the best for the award season. I know that Riefenstahl and the Six Billion Dollar Man are certainly long listed for BAFTAs. I don't know what else they're doing, but they deserve the credibility that they're getting and fingers crossed. And thank you so much for spending an hour and with us in the Archive Room. We appreciate it loads. Mona El-Bira (40:38) Thank you guys. Thank you so much. I really had a lot of fun. Thank you so much. Bye. Dominic Dare (40:45) Thank you. Bye bye guys.