Business Doc Europe

Before she retired, Lisbeth Grägg confided to director Sylvelin Måkestad that when she retired, she planned to travel to Finland and retrieve a long-lost revolver with which her father, fighting for the Finnish army, unsuccessfully attempted suicide after a clash with the Russians during the Second World War. “That was inspiring to me, an elderly woman setting off on a secret mission like this. I thought this is something I can’t miss. I have to apply for money and do a film about it,” Måkestad tells BDE.

After her assault by Spanish police officers on the day of the unofficial referendum on Catalonian independence, activist Marta Torrecillas was subjected to a horrific barrage of insults on social media where she was accused of lying about her injuries. “I saw her video. I was very touched by her story because although it was her, it could have been me or any of the other women who had been in polling stations on that day, trying to vote,” director Anna M. Bofarull tells BDE before the world premiere of her new feature doc Rebel.

When Norwegian filmmaker Anette Ostrø began work on The Golden Swan, premiering in the International Competition at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, she was stepping into territory that few directors would ever dare confront: reconstructing the abduction and murder of her own brother, Hans Christian Ostrø, kidnapped in Kashmir in 1995 by the militant group al-Faran. Ostrø talks to Business Doc Europe.

In 2009 director Jukka Kärkkäinen made The Living Room of a Nation which introduced us to Finnish Tero Pihkakoski and his newborn son, Henri. Sixteen years on, Kärkkäinen revisits the pair to record their ongoing journey. “I think he is some kind of mirror image of me,” the director notes philosophically of his friend Tero. “We are getting more and more sad every year…maybe life is just difficult for people like us. When we are happy, we are really happy. When we are sad, we are really, really sad.”

For her feature doc selected for Thessaloniki Doc Fest, Guro Saniola Bjerk takes us to Båtsfjord, an Arctic fishing village where cod is more important than God. Even in one of the coldest places on Earth, you can find the warmest and funniest people there, whether Norwegian, Ukrainian, Finnish, Syrian, Tamil…even Russian. “If you are a good worker, they don’t care where you are from,” Bjerk talks of the town’s tolerance toward foreign workers and immigrants.

Producer Jessica Hargrave talks to Business Doc Europe about her highly emotional documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, directed by Ryan White, about the witty, warm and fast-talking word-poet Andrea Gibson, who is facing a terminal cancer diagnosis. “I have never been in a situation like this before when I know almost certainly that I was going to lose someone as I walked toward them,” Hargrave reflects. “It’s a very unusual experience…it helped us recognise the urgency of life.”

The wide-ranging set of guidelines was presented by author Nora Philippe, Director of EURODOC, during EFM Archive day, and is intended for use by filmmakers, producers, archival producers, film funds, archives and commissioning editors. “We have plenty of really useful and well-made sets of recommendations when it comes to parity, when it comes to diversity…we have sets of recommendations when it comes to sustainability, to environmental justice, on the relationship to protagonists…but nothing has ever been done [on] archives,” Philippe underlines the necessity of her Roadmap to filmmakers and archive professionals alike.

Movies that Matter Festival (The Netherlands) has revealed the full programme for its 2026 edition, bringing together a selection of films that confront urgent human rights issues and global social challenges. From 20 – 28 March 2026, the festival will “transform The Hague into an international meeting place for filmmakers, activists and audiences, presenting 95 films, including 10 world premieres,” organisers write.

In 2026, the Geneva-based human rights festival presents 35 documentaries, nine fiction films and twelve short films competing in the various competitions, and/or accompanying the 21 Forums and three Impact Spotlights. The competing films will be reviewed by international and youth juries, who will reveal the Award winners during the Closing Ceremony. The upcoming edition of FIFDH runs 6 to 15 March.

In La Pieta, produced by SUICAfilms (Spain), AXfilms (Iceland) and Studio Nominum (Lithuania) and selected for Thessaloniki’s International Competition, a veil of snow covers the Icelandic glacier of Vatnajökull, the largest on the island, and old voices echo like prayers – a requiem for what once was, and what will be lost forever. “There is something fascinating, almost mystical, about standing in front of a glacier. It’s the closest feeling to when, as children, we believed in God,” say co-directors Rafa Molés and Pepe Andreu.

A total of 252 full-length and short documentary films will be screened at the 28th TIDF, with a record number of 80 world premieres, as well as 32 international and 11 European premieres. The opening film of the festival (March 5) is Ask E. Jean by Ivy Meeropol, while the Oscar-nominated Mr. Nobody Against Putin will close the festival March 15. Debutant doc director Juliette Binoche will present her In-I In Motion in Thessaloniki.

Visions du Réel announced February 25 Sergei Loznitsa as the Special Guest of the 57th edition of the festival (17–26 April). Loznitsa will participate with a masterclass and a selected retrospective of his documentary work. “With a filmography marked by astonishing diversity – from short to feature films, oscillating between fiction and documentary – Loznitsa is a major figure of contemporary non-fiction cinema, and beyond,” the festival writes.