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.

The shortlists for the 39th European Film Awards, which take place 16 January 2027, were unveiled October 14 by the European Film Academy. These include 15 films that will compete for the Best Documentary award, joining the 45 films that are selected for the fiction shortlist, and eight on the animation shortlist. “Together, they celebrate the excellence, diversity and creativity of European cinema, reflecting its many cultures, languages and perspectives while exploring some of today’s most pressing issues, from migration and cultural clashes to minority communities, gender and political freedom,” writes the EFA.

The top-level panel invited documentary experts and filmmakers to share their experiences of handling artistic and production challenges in their use of archival footage. Moderated by Sheffield DocFest Creative Director Raul Niño Zambrano, the panel comprised Nanette Burstein, director of Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff; Rafael Guendelman, director of Az Zeeb; Simon McCallum, producer (Archive & Industry) at the BFI National Archive, and Theo Rollason, director of Queer Edward II.

Led by Artistic Director Anita Piotrowska, the KFF selection team is looking for the "most compelling productions from around the world,” with around 200 titles set to make it into the festival programme. The upcoming edition will also deliver an important new addition. For the first time, the festival will host the International Documentary Debut Competition. ”We are very happy that Krakow will become a place even more open to documentary debuts,” says Piotrowska.

One of the largest docfests in the world, and included on the list of Academy Award® qualifying events, Millennium Docs Against Gravity is now accepting submissions for its 24th edition running May 7-16 2027 in cinemas, and from May 18-31 online at mdag.pl. “It is a place for world, international, and European premieres of the most acclaimed and important documentary films,” says MDAG. “Every year, it also becomes a meeting space for filmmakers and audiences, as well as film industry representatives working on new projects, which they present during pitches at MDAG Industry.”

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) announced October 13 the main competition line-ups for its 39th edition, running November 12 to 22. Newly unveiled selections include the International and Envision Competitions, Luminous, Frontlight, the IDFA DocLab competition selections, and the nominations for all cross-section awards. The IDFA 2026 official selection includes 253 titles from 80 countries and opens with the world premiere of White Tiger Column by Robert Mentov, Dwight Jantzi and Bryan Dickie.

Organisers of Impact Days, the professional programme of the Geneva-based International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH), announced October 13 the twelve projects selected for the event's 9th edition, running March 7 to 9 2027. Over the coming months, teams will be coached online on all matters impact, before the projects' presentation to international impact professionals and human rights organisations.