Business Doc Europe

Chronicling one person’s experience of travelling across continents to escape a North African prostitution ring, Coming From the Sea follows a young Nigerian woman who embarks on a perilous odyssey across Europe to rebuild her life and protect her child - but the ghosts of her past are never far behind. “I don't like this word migrants we use in France. I prefer exiled people,” producer Emmanuel Gras tells BDE. “I want us to see them not as just figures of people who come, but as human beings, and above all as adventurers and explorers.”

Mahsa Karampour’s In The Ogre’s Mouth screens before a professional audience at this week’s ParisDOC Work-in-Progress platform. The film tells the story of Karampour’s attempts to reach out to her brother Siâvash who moved to the US from Iran to find artistic freedom. “Siâvash expresses himself through satire, provocation, and music; I need analysis, words, and cinema. The film is built in this gap, in the attempt to create a shared space between his music and my camera,’ the director underlines.

‘What we are trying to depict is this volcano as a mirror of the world… we cannot control it, so we have to be in contact with nature, and somehow co-exist together,” says Jasmina Sijercic, producer of a new documentary about the island of Stromboli, where the active volcano is a perpetual presence. Business Doc Europe caught up with her ahead of the ParisDOC Work-in-Progress screening of The Island, directed by Sara Rastegar and Simone Pozzi, on 25th March.

Chilean René Ballesteros’ feature documentary, world-premiering in Paris, follows the stories of two Mapuche men, Juan and Daniel, who were taken from their Chilean homeland as children and adopted by European families in dubious circumstances. A trained psychologist, the film has a personal undertow for the director. “Once I met Albert Maysles…and he told me that the link between being a psychologist and making documentaries is listening,” he tells BDE. “With both Juan and Daniel there was a connection, because I was trying to listen to myself, too.”

Dutch Bart van den Aardweg discusses his dynamic new documentary, shot in both Belgium and The Netherlands, which addresses alienation and how youths may resort either to criminality or radicalisation as an outlet. “I wanted to explore the mind of somebody on the so-called wrong path further and deeper, and to create an interior monologue, to connect their thoughts to the physical shape I had used before. And I knew that I had to live amongst my characters to catch the real story, make them talk to me.”

The Netherlands-based Italian filmmaker discusses his new feature documentary, selected for Movies That Matter, 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. “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 Greek Documentary Association has repeated its call to the international doc community to sign a petition over the restriction of cultural content on Greek Public Television, and in particular over the transformation of ERT2 into a channel for exclusively sports-oriented programming. “We invite you, as members of the global documentary community, to stand with the Greek Documentary Association in defending a fundamental principle: that culture, documentary storytelling, and the free expression of creative voices must remain at the heart of public broadcasting,” the organisation writes.

Visions du Réel returns for its 57th edition (17 – 26 April 2026) with a programme featuring 164 films from a record 75 countries. While the representation of women continues to increase (44 %) compared to 39% in 2025, the Festival will also feature 7% co-directed films, as well as 1% directed by non-binary people and 48% by men. Among the 128 new films presented, 83 are world premieres and 8 international premieres. 58 first films, including 36 first feature-length films, complete the picture, with no fewer than 26 Swiss (co)productions.

Romanian filmmaker Radu Ciorniciuc presented his new investigative documentary project, titled Director’s Cut, at the CPH:DOX Forum 2026, offering a behind-the-scenes look at humanitarian aid operations in times of war, and the murky intersection between crisis response, political influence and media narratives. “Slowly, I understood that goodwill here is laundered into power, control and profit,” he says.

The NEFTi International Short Film Comp and Movies That Matter Festival announced March 23 a new partnership to support displaced filmmakers living in the European diaspora and across the African continent. The organisations have together launched the 2026 NEFTi Competition, aimed at identifying and supporting emerging filmmakers whose perspectives are shaped by global displacement.

A new documentary exploring the life and work of largely overlooked African-American photographer Alvin Baltrop (1948-2004) was pitched to industry professionals at CPH:DOX Forum. The film, titled Letter to Alvin, is directed by Hilton Als and Göran Hugo Olsson, and produced by Tobias Janson and Melissa Lindgren, with Sweden and the United States attached as producing countries. BDE reports.

Irish filmmaker Roisin Agnew presented her hybrid documentary Blackest Ever Black at CPH:DOX Forum 2026, a project examining the political, environmental and economic implications of Ireland’s rapid expansion of data centres – using satire and fictional framing to interrogate the global power of Big Tech. “Ireland has been at the forefront of this expansion for decades. If you want to understand tech and the threat it presents, you need to understand Ireland and how these companies operate there,” explained Agnew.