Business Doc Europe

Elwira Niewiera’s feature documentary, world-premiering November 15 in Amsterdam, follows four Ukrainian women who have endured horrific experiences - torture, sexual violence, long-term imprisonment, terror and bereavement - since the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022. The director acknowledges to BDE how, while making the documentary, and learning the terrible things people can do to one another, “you begin to lose trust in humanity. That was one of my motivations for making this film, also to show the inner strength and resilience the women have to overcome the worst evil.”

Effervescent Folkestone-based producer and consultant Charlie Phillips, former Head of Documentaries at the Guardian, has only been Programme Director (Advocacy and Curation) at the Documentary Association of Europe (DAE) since September, succeeding Brigid O’Shea, but he is already putting his indelible stamp on the organisation. “I see us like a trade union, a trade body [that can offer] protection in a very hostile world,” he tells BDE.

In Sara Dosa’s new feature doc, produced by National Geographic, selected for IDFA Signed and sure to be a front runner during the upcoming awards season, renowned Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason turns his film archives into a time capsule to hold onto the memory both of his country’s diminishing glaciers and his beloved grandparents. “I think for me, both as a person and a filmmaker, I'm endlessly inspired by the power of nature, and how humans can co-create story and meaning with nature,” Dosa tells Business Doc Europe.

Emmy award-winning artist and filmmaker Tamara Shogaolu returns to IDFA with what she terms “a multi-platform opera experience,” about a Black female influencer living in Amsterdam 400 years ago. It is a project with personal resonance. “Often, it is people of colour who are never ‘European,’” she says. “People of colour and migrant backgrounds are still made to feel they do not belong today, despite having been part of Dutch society and shaping the Netherlands for centuries. That resonates with me in my own experience.”

Love comes at a price in Fernando Souza’s feature doc about host clubs in Tokyo’s Kabukicho red light district. The partly-fictionalised film focusses on Hikaru, a seductive charmer by night, and a bespectacled computer nerd by day, with a girlfriend as well as a strong desire to have kids. “It's very strange, but we ended up getting much closer to reality by fictionalising it than by shooting the real thing,” the director tells Business Doc Europe. “I tried for many, many years to shoot it as an observational documentary. It was impossible.”

The two co-directors, one Dutch, the other Filipino, discuss their feature documentary selected for IDFA Luminous, a love story played out between Amsterdam and The Philippines. “We really had to find a strong partner, and that's what we found in Venice,” stresses Raes, who is no stranger to IDFA having presented many docs there in the past, and whose Close to Vermeer (2023) was in the running for an Oscar® for Best Feature Documentary. “It was really a great joy for me.”

Top international sales company Rise and Shine World Sales announced November 14 its launch of a streaming platform dedicated exclusively to outstanding documentary content. The new RISEANDSHINE CHANNEL will be run in partnership with the company’s distribution arm Rise and Shine Cinema. “Every month, a rotating line up of documentaries will be added to the service, giving a curated selection of great stories,” the company says.

Andrei Kutsila’s Letters From The Silenced Country; Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor’s Naza; Pegah Ahangarani’s Rehearsals for a Revolution; Biljana Tutorov & Petar Glomazić’s To Hold A Mountain, and Whispers in the Woods by Vincent Munier were unveiled November 14 as the five nominees in the European Documentary category of the 39th European Film Awards. All five are also nominated in the European Film category. The winners will be revealed in this year’s award ceremony on 16 January 2027 in Athens.

It’s a bumper year for the Polish doc industry with no fewer than eight Polish productions and co-productions featured across International Competition, Frontlight, Luminous, Signed, Best of Fests, Dead Angle and IDFA DocLab. On November 16 during IDFA Industry, the Polish Docs Pro Showcase will feature five of the most inventive and interesting Polish creative documentary projects in progress. Additionally, Polish films and projects at IDFA will be celebrated during the Guest Meet Guest networking event hosted by Polish Docs and Wajda Film Centre on Sunday November 15.

World Congress of Science & Factual Producers (WCSFP) will be heading to Riva del Garda, Trentino, Italy, for its 35th edition from November 8-11, 2027. The annual gathering brings together hundreds of producers, broadcasters, commissioners, distributors, streamers, scientists, digital creators from around the world to explore the latest developments in science and factual storytelling, forge new partnerships and unlock opportunities across the industry. The recently ended 2026 edition ran Nov 9 to 12 in Tallinn.

The awards were handed out in London on November 10 during a ceremony hosted by comedian Nish Kumar and attended by leading filmmakers, producers and executives from Britain and around the world. The BBC picked up four awards, with Netflix winning three awards, and Channel 4 and Sky Documentaries both winning two awards. ITV, National Geographic, Olympics.com and S4C each won in one category.

Chile is set for a busy IDFA with the international premiere of Carmen Castillo’s We Are Still Alive in Signed section, two films in Best of Fests, a further two projects in Forum and a targeted programme of industry events. “The fact that IDFA, one of the world’s most significant documentary film events, is once again recognising and celebrating Chilean filmmaking by including a wide range of films, projects and perspectives from our country in its programme, reaffirms the richness of Chilean documentary cinema,” says Diego Pino Anguita, Executive Director of the Chilean Documentary Corporation.