Business Doc Europe

When director Min Sook Lee was twelve, her mother, with whom she emigrated from Korea to Canada in the 1970s, committed suicide. But it is only now, in her ninth feature documentary, that Min Sook is able to finally tell her mother’s story. “It's taken me a long time to come close to it,” she tells Business Doc Europe. “Of course, it's something that I wanted to do, but I didn't know how. So many strong emotions and fears, but also a fear that I might not do it right, not do it justice.”

Peter Mettler’s epic two-part documentary comprises a diary shot over three years, commencing just before the pandemic, during which he had to deal both with the death of his parents and a very serious illness of his own. Throughout the 7-hour work, he seeks answers to the question: is the grass always greener on the other side? “It evolved into something quite profound, and led to an appreciation of the cycles of living and dying, and the understanding that I'm completely part of that. We're all part of that. There's no getting around it,” Mettler tells BDE.

Folk comes to the Lido September 5 in Robert Gordon and Joe Lauro’s story of the Newport Folk Festival, which was a hot bed of political radicalism and musical evolution in the early 1960s. Featuring the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and John Lee Hooker, it's a film made for theatrical exhibition, the filmmakers argue. “In Venice, we will play to a 1400-seat theatre, and that's the size of some of the Newport stages!”

In the hybrid film Memory, Vladlena Sandu, a survivor of the war in Chechnya, studies her traumatic memories in order to transcend and transform them via cinema. “The bad memories, I have a chance to look at them - and I feel myself more calm,” she explains to Business Doc Europe how it helps her to confront the demons from her childhood through her art. Her hope with her filmmaking is to try to break “the circle of violence” that has for so long surrounded her.

Leading Argentine director Lucrecia Martel takes the plunge into documentary with her latest feature, a complex and hard-hitting story about the murder of an Indigenous community leader and the community’s subsequent fight for justice on his behalf. “It is very important to convey to young people that filmmaking and cinema can have a huge power,” Martel tells Business Doc Europe. “They can use it for good or bad reasons but it has a huge power - and I’ve never felt it so much as in this film.”

The Dutch/Afghan filmmaker discusses his riveting new documentary, world-premiering in Venice, which immerses the audience in the daily lives of a young Taliban solider and his teenage brother. “My film depicts the effect of war on people,” says Amini. “Not only the war in Afghanistan, it's the war everywhere. War is not only destructive for cities, buildings, houses, hospitals and roads. It also destroys the souls of people generation after generation after generation.”

Nine new international immersive documentary projects have been selected for CPH:DOX’s talent development and training programme, CPH:LAB. CPH:LAB introduces a curated line-up showcasing a diversity of topics, genres and artistic approaches as well as a diverse representation among the storytellers. The Copenhagen docfest will continue its collaborations with Sunnyside of the Doc and DOK Leipzig, it also announced.

The Danish Oscar Committee has selected David Borenstein’s documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin as Denmark’s official submission in the International Feature Film Award category. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award, and its Danish premiere at CPH:DOX in March 2025.

Films on Madonna, David Lynch, Boy George, Jeff Buckley are selected for the Heart Beat section, whose selections span “multiple art forms and expressions, celebrating the creative act,” write organisers. From the Earth to the Moon section features three heavyweights of world cinema — Werner Herzog with Ghost Elephants, Lucrecia Martel with Landmarks, and Laura Poitras, co-director of Cover-Up. The 22nd edition of Doclisboa runs 16 - 26 October.

Parasisi is a feature-length documentary, directed by VAF Wildcard winner Zaïde Bil and co-directed by Sébastien Segers, about the Wayana indigenous community on the border of Suriname and French Guiana. The film joins 24 other doc projects (7 new pitches, 11 docs-in-progress and 6 completed doc features) at the Ghent event running 7-8 October.

The program will feature new films from Czechia and beyond, film retrospectives, and the “best of world experimental cinema,” the festival writes. Taiwan-based Tsai Ming-liang will shoot and present the world premiere of the new Walker series film at Ji.hlava. The discussion platform Inspiration Forum will focus on the topics of love, money, radicalization, and the future of Europe. The 29th Ji.hlava IDFF will run October 24 to November 2.

Visions du Réel announced September 16 the appointment of Sabine Fayoux Cantillo as its new Head of Industry. Over the past 12 years working in the New York doc sector, she has held various key roles including Associate Director of Program at Chicken & Egg Films. “VdR has been programming some of the boldest, most creative, exciting and artistic documentaries in the field, and I look forward to playing a role in further shaping such a profound legacy,” comments Cantillo.