Business Doc Europe

The industry programme of Nordisk Panorama kicks off in earnest this weekend, heralding 5 days of intense pitching, deal-making, networking and debate in the Swedish city of Malmö. The Forum runs 20-22 September, while the market kicks off September 18. As healthy as the Nordic doc industries are, NP’s Lea Maria Strandbæk Sørensen underlines to BDE how its professionals must look beyond their regional partners to ply their trade. “No-one is served by being self-sustained within the bubble, never looking out, and never collaborating with anyone else," she stresses.

Afsaneh Salari’s new feature documentary Tehran, Under the Skin scrapes away at a side of Iranian life you won’t see in many other documentaries, namely the booming world of cosmetic surgery. Thousands of Iranian women every year are heading to surgeries to get noses sculpted, stomachs tucked, breasts lifted or skin tightened. The film, sold by CAT&Docs, has its world premiere in TIFF Lightbox this weekend. Director Salari talks to BDE.

In Letters from the Silenced Country, exiled Belarusian director Andrei Kutsila, now living in Poland, combines archives, found footage and animation, as well as testimonies derived from letters written behind prison walls, to deliver a searing indictment of the regime that governs the country was forced to leave. “I only hope that this film will offer the international audience this opportunity to understand better our society, what is going on now, in my country.”

In a film that has as many plot twists as any fictional movie, a kidnapping at sea splits a Yemeni family apart, as a mother’s fight for survival reveals the human cost of Europe’s border regime. Director Sine Plambech emphasises to BDE that this is “not an activist film… I see it as an artistic documentation of a human rights violation - but definitely I want people to watch it and say ‘is this a good idea, to continue to outsource the border responsibilities to countries with conflicts and war and militia and weapons? Does that live up to our European values?”

Paris-based Italian director Giuseppe Schillaci talks to Business Doc Europe about his new feature documentary, world-premiering in Venice, which recalls a period in the 1980s when a programme of regenerative investment in a run-down Paris housing estate led to a glorious spike in community empowerment and connection. It was “an intimate yet collective moment of solidarity and social transformation - before the banlieues went up in flames,” he says.

Director Victor Kossakovsky and botanist Stefano Mancuso take viewers on an unprecedented journey into the life of trees. As Kossakovsky tells BDE, when he was three or four years old, growing up in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, he was shown a leaf by his mother. She explained how trees are highly complex and sensitive organisms. “It is my first memory of myself,” Kossakovsky tells BDE of this early nature lesson.

In his debut feature doc, Ömer Sami sets out to revive the memory of his legendary childhood idol, the teacher Scott Peake, but what he discovers en route is far more complex than he had imagined. “The film reminds us of the value of teachers and their ability to profoundly affect generations. Whatever was invented in Scott’s stories, his impact on his students was real,” says Danish producer Monica Hellström of Ström Pictures.

Throughout his much-documented fall from grace, Finnish Olympic champion Mika Myllylä filmed his family with his home video camera, from which another, deeply personal story emerges. “The project combines a highly recognisable Nordic figure and major sports archive with an intimate family story that does not depend on prior knowledge of Mika,” producer Pasi Hakkio tells BDE of his Nordisk Panorama WIP. “That gives the film two routes into an audience: the very strong Nordic recognition of Mika, and the much broader international themes of family, addiction, elite sport, shame and inherited patterns.”

IFFR Managing Director Clare Stewart, who jointly leads the organisation with Festival Director Vanja Kaludjercic, is stepping down from the post after her fourth edition in the role. She will remain involved with IFFR, dedicating her focus to the continued development of the Displacement Film Fund, the short film grant initiative founded and led by Cate Blanchett, and for which IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund acts as Managing Partner.

Eleven feature documentaries, two docuseries and two TV one-offs have been selected for the MIA (Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo) 2026 Co-pro Market. A further seven documentaries will be presented in the new Doc Connect programme. Across all sectors, 67 projects will be presented this year, selected from more than 530 submissions from 82 countries. The upcoming edition of MIA will run October 19 to 23 in Rome.

In 2027, the European Film Market (EFM) will introduce the EFM Doc Series Pitch, a new international platform for documentary series projects in development. Up to 10 projects from around the world will be invited to pitch and meet potential co-production, financing, commissioning and distribution partners during the Berlinale Series Market in February 2027. The initiative is co-curated with DOK.forum, the industry platform of DOK.fest München. Deadline for submissions: October 1.

The second edition of NLWave (30 Sept to Oct 2), the international showcase presenting upcoming Dutch features, documentaries and animation, is set to launch NxtWave, comprising four shorts by rising Dutch filmmaking talent. These include the multi award-winning How to Catch a Butterfly by Kiriko Mechanicus, and Nina Broers’ Student Academy Award-winning Where is my Sex Drive.