Business Doc Europe

In American Sons, director Andrew James Gonzales follows a brotherhood of Marines a decade after their deployment to Afghanistan, as they struggle to overcome the trauma of combat and the loss of their best friend, Corporal JV Villarreal. “It goes back to what Charles Dickens said in A Tale of Two Cities. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” the director tells BDE. “Even though it was horrible, it was also the greatest experience they’ve ever had…the love you have for someone who you’re willing to die for and who is willing to die for you, we cannot imagine.”

The part-animated feature documentary tells the story of the firebrand Nora Morales de Cortiñas, aka Norita, who became a symbol of resistance in Argentina after her son Guistavo was disappeared in the 1970s, along with thousands of other young activists. With other grieving women, she founded the campaigning Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. “It's just remarkable. It's phenomenal to think that a group of housewives basically toppled a military regime,” says co-director Jayson McNamara.

It is one of the most famous photos in history. In 1968, two days after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese General Loan was photographed executing Captain Lēm of the invading Vietcong with a single shot to the head. “For the Vietnamese, it was really the definition of the civil war. It was a Vietnamese brother shooting another Vietnamese brother,” director Naja Pham Lockwood underlines to BDE of her short documentary On Healing Land, Birds Perch. “I wanted to tell the stories behind that photo.”

Producer George Chignell talks to Business Doc Europe about Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5, an Oscar contender that was released in the US this autumn by Neon. Peck uses Orwell’s work, and Nineteen Eighty-Four in particular, to look at the growth of authoritarianism today, everywhere from Trump’s America to Putin’s Russian, from Myanmar to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. “For me, it was a gift to work with a director like him,” Chignell says of her association with Peck.

“I struggled with addiction and depression for most of my young adult life,” filmmaker Ben Rekhi clarifies to BDE of one of his main motivations for making his Oscar-qualifying short, The Breakthrough Group. The 40-minute film looks in depth at the remarkable work of The Other Side Academy in Salt Lake City, a programme providing care and “tough love” for those at the lowest ebb of drug or alcohol dependency.

It may be a fiction film, but it is the first by a director acclaimed for her documentary output. What’s more, Kat Steppe’s Sunday Ninth, a story about Alzheimer’s and the vulnerability of memory, is set in a real operational care home. “This approach allows fiction to take a step further. Blending real people into the fictional storyline highlights the real-life story, and vice versa. This mix creates a powerful viewing experience that deeply connects with the audience,” the Flemish director underlines.

Roger Ross Williams (Stamped From The Beginning) speaks to Geeta Gandbhir about her Sundance-winning feature doc The Perfect Neighbor, which presents a devastating critique of race, inequality and the vigilante-style ‘stand your ground’ legislation in operation in the US today, and which details the events leading up to the murder of Gandbhir’s friend Ajike Owens. The director recalled the conversation she had with Ajike’s mother Pam in terms of the outreach support she could offer after the tragic loss. “I have no money to give you. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a lawyer…but I think I can make a film.”

Business Doc Europe caught up with EURODOC’s Nora Philippe before an IDFA 2025 closing ceremony that awarded three films that were developed at the leading producer training lab. In total, no fewer than 37 former EURODOC alumni were selected for IDFA 2025, including nine within International and Envision competitions. “EURODOC helps good projects become excellent, highly creative projects that definitely deserve such prestigious selections,” Philippe told BDE.

A Fox Under a Pink Moon picked up the Best Film in International Competition while Past Future Continuous won Best Film in the Envision Competition. The IDFA Award for Best Directing (worth €5,000) in International Competition went to Tamar Kalandadze and Julien Pebrel for The Kartli Kingdom while The IDFA Award for Best First Feature went to Paikar by Dawood Hilmandi. The IDFA Award for Best Dutch Film was won by Maasja Ooms for My Word Against Mine.

The award for Best Doc went to the Georgian film 9-Month Contract, which examines the struggles of a single Georgian mother who turns to surrogacy, and the limits imposed by poverty. The Best Hungarian Film award was given to My Father’s Daughter, a story about the search for a lost sister. The festival continues online until 30 November, including all winning and special mention titles.

The Geneva-based human rights festival unveiled this week the 12 internatonal projects for its Impact Lab training program in 2026. Each project representative will receive expert training to craft an impact strategy ahead of presentation to dozens of NGOs, international organisations and philanthropists, both in Geneva and beyond. The next edition of FIFDH Impact Days runs March 8 to 10 2026.

Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude; Fiume o morte! by Igor Bezinović; Riefenstahl by Andres Veiel; Songs of Slow Burning Earth by Olha Zhurba and Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza were unveiled November 18 as the five nominees in the European Documentary category of the 38th 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 17 January in Berlin.