Business Doc Europe

In Magic Hour, world-premiering in Krakow, director Marcin Borchardt profiles the brilliant Polish DoP Piotr Sobociński who had struggled with the extreme stresses of working within the Hollywood system. He died of a heart attack while still in his creative prime. “That was perhaps the most unsettling discovery for me,” Borchardt tells BDE. “I found countless shots of anonymous hotel interiors and temporary spaces filmed between productions. It was as if the camera had unintentionally captured the psychological cost of that career and that lifestyle.”

The Netherlands-based Italian filmmaker discusses his new feature documentary, selected for Krakow FF Int’l Comp, 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 of his activist subject. “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 genocide in Namibia between 1904 and 1908 is still regarded in Germany with scant interest. German tourists still visit Namibia in huge numbers but few know about the dark shared history between the countries. The new feature doc Sorry for the Genocide, world-premiering June 3 at Doxumentale and co-directed by Theodora Shandé, Matteo Sant'Unione, Lisa Ossenbrink and Elmarie Kapunda, gives a long overdue platform to descendants of those who died. Shandé talks to BDE.

In her short film Hidden, Polish director Monika Kotecka examines the emotions of fear and anxiety, using archive culled from the Educational Film Studio in Łódź, and the application both of polyphonic voices and a soundscape derived from bodily sounds, such as breathing and heartbeat. Severe anxiety, we are told, affects 4.4% of the world’s population. “I didn't want to make an autobiographical film,” Kotecka tells Business Doc Europe. “But of course my own experiences were, let's say, an important starting point.”

Polish filmmaker Paweł Łoziński speaks to Business Doc Europe before the presentation of the inaugural Marcel Łoziński International Documentary Award, devised by Kraków Film Festival and the Polish Documentary Film Directors Guild in honour of his late, great father. Paweł is Marcel’s son, and sat on the jury which will hand the new prize June 3 to Cuban filmmaker David Bim for his debut effort To the West in Zapata. “It is a documentary about the power of love, something essential that allows the protagonists to endure the hardships of their lives,” says Paweł of Bim’s film.

Roni Aboulafia’s thrilling feature documentary chronicles the attempts to extract 167 Afghans from the country after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. “It was an intensely life-changing experience for all of us,” the director tells BDE of the Herculean task. “It’s hard to grasp fully in the moment, but one simple act of sisterhood grew into something enormous and unimaginable. It was beyond what I thought I could handle… At the same time, it was empowering. I learned we are capable of far more than we think.”

This year, Baltic Sea Docs celebrates its 30th anniversary, marking three decades of supporting documentary filmmakers from the Baltic Sea region, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and beyond. The 30th edition of the forum will take place from 6–11 September 2026. The project selection for the upcoming edition has concluded, with a total of 26 documentary projects selected for presentation.

David Bim, winner of the first Marcel Łoziński Documentary Award for his debut feature To the West, in Zapata, discussed the film with Business Doc Europe before the June 3 ceremony. “I had never made a film before, and from that perspective, every obstacle imaginable existed,” he said. “But there is something I consider fundamental for me, not only as a filmmaker but also as a person: that my life and my work remain coherent with one another.”

"The funniest jokes are those told with a serious face," producer Ivanna Khitsinska tells BDE of Ivan Sautkin’s deeply ironic, anthropological investigation into the sense of kinship felt by some Ukrainians with Taras Shevchenko, esteemed poet and Father of the Nation. “Today, international audiences often encounter Ukraine almost exclusively through news about war, destruction, and geopolitics. DNA of the Nation offers a completely different way of seeing the country — through humour, intimacy, absurdity, and deeply human everyday situations.”

While working on a book about ageing, Poland's most beloved linguist, Professor Jerzy Bralczyk, embarks on a cruise with his beloved wife Lucyna. The journey becomes a reflection on love, growing old, shared dreams and the art of enjoying life until the very end. “Their love is mature, funny, tender and completely unsentimental,” producer Marta Dużbabel tells BDE. “They still argue, tease each other, laugh together and support one another. We see many films about falling in love. We rarely see films about staying in love.”

In Polish Siarhei Marchyk’s new project, at rough cut stage and presented at Krakow Industry, Cameo, a young Ukrainian soldier, eager to fight, learns he is about to become a father, and must decide whether or not to desert, choosing between duty and the future of his family. “I spent six months embedded with Cameo's mortar unit,” director/producer Marchyk tells BDE. “The camera was present not only during combat operations but also during moments of vulnerability, boredom, fear, friendship and love. This level of access is one of the film's greatest strengths.”

This week, Berlin-based Doxumentale will screen two documentaries curated by Another Story, the new pan-European initiative dedicated to “reclaiming and recontextualising women’s contributions to documentary cinema.” The stated aim of the organisation is to rediscover and share forgotten female-directed documentary films from the 20th century, “ensuring their legacy reaches new generations in Europe.”