Business Doc Europe

Matt Alesevich and Hemal Trivedi’s short documentary focusses on the deeply personal relationship between Aney, a New York–based healthcare worker, and Farida, a wise and resilient teenager from an Indian nomadic tribe. “People say that there are three types of C that get funded, which are films about cult, crime, or celebrity,” co-director Trivedi tells BDE. “But there's a fourth C which people don't talk about, which is community. And our film is about building community.”

Mariska Hargitay’s Oscar-contending HBO-backed documentary is a deeply personal and clearly cathartic venture in which the filmmaker tries to make sense of her relationship with someone about whom she has only the most fleeting recollections - her mother, Jayne Mansfield. It was a film Hargitay made with the blessing of her siblings. “Not only did they trust me but, at the end, they all shared how healing and how cathartic it was for them. I told them I am making this movie for us,” she tells BDE.

It’s 50 years now since the end of the Vietnam war. A still largely unchronicled aspect of the conflict is the plight of the “Amerasian” children born to Vietnamese mothers but abandoned by their American GI fathers. Sang, the subject of Weronika Mliczewska’s new doc Child of Dust (sold by Rise and Shine and an Oscar contender) is one of these lost souls. The director talks to BDE.

Third Act (which premiered in Sundance) is an intimate and loving portrait of Robert A. Nakamura, the pioneering Japanese-American filmmaker often called “The Godfather of Asian American film,” who died earlier this summer. “Initially, we set out just to make a simple biography of my dad, a portrait of an artist celebrating his achievements and career,” Tadashi Nakamura tells BDE. “But anyone could make that biopic. What is the film that only I could make, as his son, in that moment? That was an open-ended question and the challenge.”

Flemming Fynsk’s intimate portrait of Ginny Williams (1927-2019) brings to life the story of a collector who seemed to have an instinct for female artists who were destined to take the art world by storm. “I'm all about character and heart and originality and I just had this feeling that it's rare to meet a character like her, somebody who's so confident in who she is, and how she interacts with the world. And I had a great desire to capture it,” Fynsk tells BDE.

In American Sons, director Andrew James Gonzales follows a brotherhood of Marines a decade after their deployment to Afghanistan, as they struggle to overcome the trauma of combat and the loss of their best friend, Corporal JV Villarreal. “It goes back to what Charles Dickens said in A Tale of Two Cities. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” the director tells BDE. “Even though it was horrible, it was also the greatest experience they’ve ever had…the love you have for someone who you’re willing to die for and who is willing to die for you, we cannot imagine.”

The Nyon-based docfest is inviting films for its Official Selection, which includes six competition sections, as well as projects for VdR–Industry activities. Films in competition receive their world, international or European premiere. The final date for submissions for both Festival and Industry is Dec 15. The 57th edition of Visions du Réel will run 17 to 26 April 2026.

Roger Ross Williams (Stamped From The Beginning) speaks to Geeta Gandbhir about her Sundance-winning feature doc The Perfect Neighbor, which presents a devastating critique of race, inequality and the vigilante-style ‘stand your ground’ legislation in operation in the US today, and which details the events leading up to the murder of Gandbhir’s friend Ajike Owens. The director recalled the conversation she had with Ajike’s mother Pam in terms of the outreach support she could offer after the tragic loss. “I have no money to give you. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a lawyer…but I think I can make a film.”

Business Doc Europe caught up with EURODOC’s Nora Philippe before an IDFA 2025 closing ceremony that awarded three films that were developed at the leading producer training lab. In total, no fewer than 37 former EURODOC alumni were selected for IDFA 2025, including nine within International and Envision competitions. “EURODOC helps good projects become excellent, highly creative projects that definitely deserve such prestigious selections,” Philippe told BDE.

A Fox Under a Pink Moon picked up the Best Film in International Competition while Past Future Continuous won Best Film in the Envision Competition. The IDFA Award for Best Directing (worth €5,000) in International Competition went to Tamar Kalandadze and Julien Pebrel for The Kartli Kingdom while The IDFA Award for Best First Feature went to Paikar by Dawood Hilmandi. The IDFA Award for Best Dutch Film was won by Maasja Ooms for My Word Against Mine.

The award for Best Doc went to the Georgian film 9-Month Contract, which examines the struggles of a single Georgian mother who turns to surrogacy, and the limits imposed by poverty. The Best Hungarian Film award was given to My Father’s Daughter, a story about the search for a lost sister. The festival continues online until 30 November, including all winning and special mention titles.

The Geneva-based human rights festival unveiled this week the 12 internatonal projects for its Impact Lab training program in 2026. Each project representative will receive expert training to craft an impact strategy ahead of presentation to dozens of NGOs, international organisations and philanthropists, both in Geneva and beyond. The next edition of FIFDH Impact Days runs March 8 to 10 2026.