Business Doc Europe

Fourteen Dutch documentary projects, twelve of which are at advanced stage, will be presented during the second edition of NLWave (September 30 to October 2), an initiative of the Netherlands Film Fund and presented in co-operation with SEE NL. The 2026 showcase comprises a who’s who of top Dutch creative and business talent, and presents a wealth of fascinating stories that span the globe. Simone van den Broek, Head of Documentary and Fiction at the Netherlands Film Fund, guides Business Doc Europe through this year’s selection.

World-premiering in Utrecht, Joeri Pruys’s Final Cut looks at how the provocative TV show Body Art, made by Pruys’s father in the 1970s and starring the then little-known Serbian artist Marina Abramović, turned into one of the most notorious cases in the history of Dutch censorship. “The rules around who is actually the owner of this material are very vague,” Pruys tells BDE. “That is why in the film I am also saying it is my heritage, so I should be able to do with it whatever I want, because my father created this. It’s Marina’s work as well, so she should be free to use it.”

Ahead of the 15th Finnish Film Affair, running September 23 to 25, Head of Industry Lydia Taylerson answers questions posed by Business Doc Europe. During the event, eight documentary feature projects will be pitched to the professionals in attendance. “In all honesty, I think Finland's unique selling point is the lack of hierarchy within the film industry here,” Taylerson says. “Anyone who attends Finnish Film Affair also feels that. You can be a producer just starting out in your career, and over morning coffee be chatting with senior programmers of Tribeca or SXSW.”

Oscar-winning US director Alex Gibney talks to Business Doc Europe ahead of the September 30 UK release of Knife, about the shocking onstage attack on Salman Rushdie in New York in 2022. “He comes out of all of this learning all sorts of life lessons and not being mired in bitterness, resentment and hate,” Gibney observes of Rushdie. “He was certainly haunted and debilitated mentally by the attack, and he had to get that strength back. The only way he knew to do it was to push through.”

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.

IDFA 2026 has announced the titles selected for its Short Documentary Competition, alongside new selections for Signed, Best of Fests, and Paradocs. IDFA DocLab has also unveiled first projects for its 20th anniversary, as well as the winners of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant 2026. The final competition titles and full selection will be announced on October 13. The 39th edition of IDFA runs from November 12 to 22 in Amsterdam.

Irish-UK producer and former European Film Academy Chairman Mike Downey was honoured September 26 with the Batumi International Art-House Film Festival (BIAFF) in Georgia. The Award acknowledged his contribution to World Cinema as a producer and European Cinema as former chair of EFA and current President of the LUX Prize of the European Parliament.

Lightdox has swept up world sales rights to Patrick Wally’s ‘My Home of Wind and Sand’, a decade-long portrait of Sahrawi activist Najla Mohamed Lamin, ahead of its world premiere at the 22nd Zurich Film Festival on September 29, where it screens in Documentary Competition. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg will attend the premiere and join Lamin, the film’s protagonist, for a post-screening discussion.

Leading film and executive producer Michael Ryan and BAFTA-nominated producer Farah Abushwesha join Irish Film & TV UK as the organisation celebrates 15 years of championing Irish screen talent in the UK. “IFTUK is dedicated to developing and encouraging new talent, as well as promoting established Irish talent, and having such eminent experts as patrons from all areas of the global film & tv business will help us to achieve this,” comments IFTUK Chair, Carey Fitzgerald.

The €3000 prize went to director Anna Antsalo and producer Venla Hellstedt for their feature project about a man (Olli) who, in the borderlands of Finland, attempts to preserve the natural dark nights, as light pollution an severely affect our physical and mental wellbeing. “The filmmaker's connection to her character and his passion shows us a world that is very unique and at the same time universal,” the jury commented.

Odd Slice Films has sold French rights to Tom Adjibi’s debut feature This is Not a French Film to DFF (Decolonial Film Festival), following the film’s Grand Prix in the National Competition at the Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF). For DFF, the acquisition marks the organisation’s first wide theatrical release. “This is Not a French Film embodies what we strive for with the DFF: making political discussions accessible through creative cinema,” says Sam Leter, founder of DFF.