Business Doc Europe

Silent Flood, which has just won the Silver Horn for High Artistic Value at Krakow, isn’t a film in a hurry. Ukrainian Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk is telling the story of a closed religious community based in rural west Ukraine. Life is quiet and peaceful - or at least would be if it weren’t for the constant floods and the wars that have bedevilled the area. And then came the full-scale Russian invasion… The director talks to BDE.

Tristan da Cunha may be the most remote inhabited island on the planet, but it is nevertheless the place where Loran Bonnardot, a piano-playing doctor from Paris, is determined to settle. His existentialist journey, part-fictionalised, is chronicled by Swiss director Tobias Nölle. “I saw in Loran a castaway from our hyper-competitive society, seeking an authenticity we’ve lost, on an island secluded from our war-torn world; a dream I wanted to transform into a cinematic experience,” he says. The film won The Golden Horn for Best Film in International Competition at Krakow 2026.

Mongolian director Khoroldorj Choijoovanchig and French co-writer Chantal Perrin talk to BDE about their feature doc Colors of White Rock, which reintroduces us to Maikhuu, one of the few female drivers on the treacherous ‘coal highway’ that snakes through the Gobi Desert. It is a gritty but poetic film. “I didn’t want it to be really, really political, but in a way the topic, the theme of the story, engages with the current situation in Mongolia,” the director notes to BDE of a story that can’t help but have a strong political undertow.

In Magic Hour, world-premiering in Krakow, director Marcin Borchardt profiles the brilliant Polish DoP Piotr Sobociński who struggled with the extreme stresses of working within the Hollywood system. He died of a heart attack while still in his creative prime. “That was perhaps the most unsettling discovery for me,” Borchardt tells Business Doc Europe. “I found countless shots of anonymous hotel interiors and temporary spaces filmed between productions. It was as if the camera had unintentionally captured the psychological cost of that career and that lifestyle.”

The Netherlands-based Italian filmmaker discusses his new feature documentary, selected for Krakow FF Int’l Comp, about the ongoing febrile political situation in Armenia. “The moment I got interested in Shahen was when I realised the pressure this young guy was under,” recalls director Marco De Stefanis of his activist subject. “He was keeping up the fight while his father was in prison. I felt really sorry for a guy that age that doesn’t have the same youth I had.”

The genocide in Namibia between 1904 and 1908 is still regarded in Germany with scant interest. German tourists still visit Namibia in huge numbers but few know about the dark shared history between the countries. The new feature doc Sorry for the Genocide, world-premiering June 3 at Doxumentale and co-directed by Theodora Shandé, Matteo Sant'Unione, Lisa Ossenbrink and Elmarie Kapunda, gives a long overdue platform to descendants of those who died. Shandé talks to BDE.

The Golden Horn for Best Film went to Tristan Forever (Switzerland), while the Silver Horn for the film with high artistic value was won by Silent Flood (Ukraine, Germany). The Silver Horn for the film on social issues went to If Pigeons Turned to Gold (Czech Republic, Slovakia). The FIPRESCI Prize went to The Tale of Sylian. The Golden Hobby Horse (Polish Competition) was won by Tickling the Devil, which also won the Audience Award, together with Where Music Grows by Katrine Philp. All winners…

After pitching his feature project Gods of Memory at Krakow Industry, Polish director/producer Kamil Król sat down with Business Doc Europe to discuss his film a little more. In the feature documentary, the ageing pioneers of Poland’s computing revolution set out to follow the trail of their inventions which performed complex calculations that were later used by NASA in space research. “The particular value of the project lies in the juxtaposition of two worlds: the durable, precise memory of technology and the fragile, fallible memory of humans,” says Król.

This year, Baltic Sea Docs celebrates its 30th edition, marking three decades of supporting documentary filmmakers from the Baltic Sea region, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and beyond. The 30th edition of the forum will take place from 6–11 September 2026. The project selection for the upcoming edition has concluded, with a total of 26 documentary projects selected for presentation.

David Bim, winner of the first Marcel Łoziński Documentary Award for his debut feature To the West, in Zapata, discussed the film with Business Doc Europe before the June 3 ceremony. “I had never made a film before, and from that perspective, every obstacle imaginable existed,” he said. “But there is something I consider fundamental for me, not only as a filmmaker but also as a person: that my life and my work remain coherent with one another.”

"The funniest jokes are those told with a serious face," producer Ivanna Khitsinska tells BDE of Ivan Sautkin’s deeply ironic, anthropological investigation into the sense of kinship felt by some Ukrainians with Taras Shevchenko, esteemed poet and Father of the Nation. “Today, international audiences often encounter Ukraine almost exclusively through news about war, destruction, and geopolitics. DNA of the Nation offers a completely different way of seeing the country — through humour, intimacy, absurdity, and deeply human everyday situations.”

While working on a book about ageing, Poland's most beloved linguist, Professor Jerzy Bralczyk, embarks on a cruise with his beloved wife Lucyna. The journey becomes a reflection on love, growing old, shared dreams and the art of enjoying life until the very end. “Their love is mature, funny, tender and completely unsentimental,” producer Marta Dużbabel tells BDE. “They still argue, tease each other, laugh together and support one another. We see many films about falling in love. We rarely see films about staying in love.”