Business Doc Europe

Ukrainian soldiers Shakhta, Potter and Dancer have a very close relationship with death, having returned to the front-line after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. “People at war accept [the possibility of] their own death and it really changes you,” Hontaruk elaborates to BDE on the title of her feature documentary, selected for Karlovy Vary. “This transformation is really important and powerful inside a person. It is a key to this film. You need to find your desire to live - and life is stronger than death.”

There is an intriguing absence at the heart of Rosa Friedrich’s hybrid documentary My Friend the Porn Star (screening in Proxima Competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and sold by New Docs). The director’s friend, the would-be porn star Timo, decided late on during the project that he didn’t want to appear in it any more. Undaunted, Friedrich took the bold decision to keep his body but to use AI to replace his face with that of another man. The director explains more to BDE.

One of the cornerstones of Japanese broadcaster NHK’s offer at Sunny Side 2026 will be its new documentary about the completion of the Tower of Jesus on Antoni Gaudi's spectacular Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona. The new film, exec-produced by NHK’s Masumi Hoshino, will premiere in Japan on June 28 before its international roll-out. “The fact that we were granted exclusive access to film the Sagrada Família, and to document its construction continuously over such a long period of time, represents a major strength for NHK,” Hoshino tells Business Doc Europe.

Flemish production house Harald House arrives in La Rochelle with a diverse slate of documentary projects, ranging from a journey into the mind of the late, great David Lynch, to a feature doc about a team of para-cyclists who chase their dream of competing on the world stage, even as bombs descend on their home city of Gaza. “Creatively, we are drawn to films that can have an impact, whether that impact is cultural, artistic or social,” company CEO Kristian Van der Heyden tells Business Doc Europe.

For a while at the end of 2025, the future of Sunny Side of the Doc seemed very much in doubt, but after agreeing a strategic partnership with Documentary Campus, the market returns June 22-24 to La Rochelle for its 37th edition. As ever, the core remit is to connect producers with key decision-makers in order to accelerate co-pro and business opportunities but, as Doc Campus MD Donata von Perfall tells BDE, gone are the pitch events, replaced in 2026 by a “more collaborative, discussion-driven” Meet & Match model. “The goal was efficient, meaningful exchange rather than performance,” she says.

Director River Finlay talks to BDE about her MeetMarket project that follows Chilean Isabel Allende, one of the world’s most widely read authors, as she “looks beyond the stories she tells the world and confronts the ones she tells herself,” and reckoning with an unresolved past, the passage of time, and the renewed rise of authoritarianism. “Her trailblazing as an author for other women writers really is unparalleled, but mostly she really provides this incredible sense of connection and bravery,” says Finlay of her revered subject.

Guardian Documentaries and arte.tv have joined forces to support filmmakers making documentary shorts, exploring the theme of Democracy at Stake in Europe. Announced at Sheffield DocFest, the initiative invites filmmakers from across Europe to pitch character-led short documentaries examining the challenges facing democratic societies today. The deadline for submissions is September 14.

Directed by Farid Ahmad, a 2022 Berlinale Talent, Waiting for Winter is produced by Noyakar Productions (Bangladesh) and House on Fire (France) and receives World Cinema Fund support of €25,000. Of the nine funding recommendations, made from 373 submitted projects from a total of 75 countries, Waiting for Winter is the sole doc recipient. Total funding amounts to €365,000 euros.

The 21st edition of the Sole Luna Doc Film Festival has concluded with the Best Documentary and Audience Awards going to Dea Gjinovci for The Beauty of the Donkey. Hidden by Monika Kotecka received the Best Director Award, while the Best Editing Award was presented to Do You Love Me by Lana Daher, which retraces the history of Lebanon through archival footage and personal home videos.

NLWave returns September 30 to October 2 2026 with a curated selection of upcoming documentaries from the Netherlands, as well as feature films and animation. Following the successful first edition of the Dutch film showcase in 2025, first doc selections for this year’s roll-out include new projects by Renzo Martens, Aliona van der Horst, Suzanne Raes and Menno Otten. “Each of these filmmakers brings a distinct voice and a strong track record, reflecting the depth and ambition of this year’s line-up,” organisers write.

DokuFest (Kosovo) has announced the full slate of films in competition for its 25th jubilee edition, running 7 to 15 August. The programming team has selected 104 films across eight competition sections from a record number of 3687 submissions, with many enjoying World, International and European premieres. This confirms DokuFest as “an important launching pad for both documentary and narrative short films in this part of the world,” write organisers.

For the third consecutive year, Ji.hlava International Documentary FF will support outstanding auteur filmmaking from Central and Eastern Europe. The new call for applications is now open, with a deadline of August 31. Jihlava's 30th anniversary is reflected in this year's visual identity of rippling waves emanating from a fixed point, which itself points to the festival's core retrospective in 2026 of documentaries whose impact reached far beyond the cinema screen.