Business Doc Europe

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.

In Letters from the Silenced Country, exiled Belarusian director Andrei Kutsila, now living in Poland, combines archives, found footage and animation, as well as testimonies derived from letters written behind prison walls, to deliver a searing indictment of the regime that governs the country was forced to leave. “I only hope that this film will offer the international audience this opportunity to understand better our society, what is going on now, in my country.”

In a film that has as many plot twists as any fictional movie, a kidnapping at sea splits a Yemeni family apart, as a mother’s fight for survival reveals the human cost of Europe’s border regime. Director Sine Plambech emphasises to BDE that this is “not an activist film… I see it as an artistic documentation of a human rights violation - but definitely I want people to watch it and say ‘is this a good idea, to continue to outsource the border responsibilities to countries with conflicts and war and militia and weapons? Does that live up to our European values?”

Paris-based Italian director Giuseppe Schillaci talks to Business Doc Europe about his new feature documentary, world-premiering in Venice, which recalls a period in the 1980s when a programme of regenerative investment in a run-down Paris housing estate led to a glorious spike in community empowerment and connection. It was “an intimate yet collective moment of solidarity and social transformation - before the banlieues went up in flames,” he says.

Director Victor Kossakovsky and botanist Stefano Mancuso take viewers on an unprecedented journey into the life of trees. As Kossakovsky tells BDE, when he was three or four years old, growing up in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, he was shown a leaf by his mother. She explained how trees are highly complex and sensitive organisms. “It is my first memory of myself,” Kossakovsky tells BDE of this early nature lesson.

In his new 3D feature doc, Wim Wenders profiles the work of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The parallels between architecture and filmmaking are obvious, points out Wenders, who works in a similar way to his illustrious subject. A house, he believes, “is a story,” and in a film, each shot can be regarded as “a brick in time” out of which scenes and then entire movies are built. “I don’t think the movie is remotely there when you have a script. Actually, I don’t think it is there at all. It is only in the shooting process that the film takes shape,” he adds.

The second edition of NLWave (30 Sept to Oct 2), the international showcase presenting upcoming Dutch features, documentaries and animation, is set to launch NxtWave, comprising four shorts by rising Dutch filmmaking talent. These include the multi award-winning How to Catch a Butterfly by Kiriko Mechanicus, and Nina Broers’ Student Academy Award-winning Where is my Sex Drive.

Mexican-Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo will be the Guest of Honour at IDFA 2026, which takes place from November 12 to 22. IDFA will present a Retrospective of Huezo’s work, alongside a personal Top 10 film selection. Also announced is the Dead Angle: Common Ground focus program; a spotlight on pioneering American filmmaker William Greaves; and the 20th anniversary of IDFA DocLab, themed Shared Realities.

Dawood Hilmandi’s feature documentary Paikar has been selected as the Netherlands’ official entry to the 99th Academy Awards in the International Feature Film category. The film world-premiered at IDFA, where it won the Best First Feature Award and FIPRESCI Award. At Hot Docs it received the Emerging International Filmmaker Award, and has been presented at numerous other festivals worldwide including DOKfest Munich and the Guanajuato International Film Festival. The film is produced by prolific Dutch outfit BALDR Film.

Eight awards were handed out at the end of the 30th Baltic Sea Docs which this year ran September 6 to 11. The inaugural ARTE European Talent Development Award, which comprises a €10,000 development grant in exchange for a first-look deal, was won by the Lithuanian project Two of Us (pictured), directed by Jūratė Samulionytė, and produced by Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė and Danielė Kunčinaitė. A total of 26 documentary projects were selected for this year’s edition.

The Official Special Jury Prize was awarded to Naza by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (UK). The film also won the independent Edipo Re Student Award and the Green Drop Award. The Impact Golden Globes Prize went to Letters from the Silenced Country (Listy) by Andrei Kutsila. while a Queer Lion Award went to Theo Rollason for Queer Edward II. Bibiana Rojas Gómez and Juan David Cárdenas the Mario Serandrei - Hotel Saturnia Award for Best Technical Contribution for The End of Times. The Cinema & Arts Best Film Award was won by Takashi Miike for Shumei: The Living Legacy of Kabuki.

The 22nd edition of the DOK Co-Pro Market of DOK Leipzig welcomes 35 projects from 34 countries looking to connect with new international financing and co-production partners. This year’s selection represents a wide geographic spread, spanning all continents and featuring countries typically less represented in the international film arena, including the DR Congo, Namibia, Palestine, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria. Women filmmakers also maintain a strong presence in the line-up, comprising 50 percent of directing talent.