Business Doc Europe

In her feature doc debut, UK director Jessi Gutch talks to folk in her new home town of Folkestone, which overwhelmingly voted for Brexit in 2016, about the business of identity and what it means to be British. Or perhaps more accurately, what does it mean to be English? “I wanted to just talk to people and not make this into a kind of hero-villain thing. I was going to go into this more open-minded with people, starting from a place of compassion rather than starting from a place of judgement,” she tells BDE.

In Indian Bipuljit Basu’s remarkable debut feature we meet a Kolkata-based troupe of sex workers and their children, who are driving change through CAM ON, their self-run creative community that makes dynamic films about their lives. “I wouldn't have become a filmmaker if I had not met this wonderful community,” says the self-taught Basu. “Over the past five years they shaped me as a filmmaker, awakened my emotion as a filmmaker, and they helped me to grow as a human being…Trusting their collective intelligence made this film possible.”

When he read a newspaper article in 2018 about matchmaking between North Korean refugee women and South Korean men, Norwegian Morten Traavik was immediately fascinated. “[But] being very much of an outsider linguistically, culturally, I needed somebody who could be the bridge to the subject of the film; someone not only bilingual but with a built-in cultural understanding of both worlds,” he explains to BDE as to why he turned to his eventual co-director Sun Kim.

Produced by Elijah Stevens, Humboldt USA interweaves the stories of people in three ‘Humboldt’ place names (in Nevada, Chicago, and California) who are taking unique steps toward tackling environmental concerns in their communities. “These oft-disparate narratives raise the question: in the face of ecological collapse and increasing virtualization of nature, what does it mean to be an environmentalist in America today?” Stevens posits to BDE.

The principles of journalistic integrity and freedom of the press are placed squarely in the frame in Hungarian András Földes and Anna Kis’ urgent new documentary, selected as a Sheffield DocFest Rough Cut. “80 Angry Journalists explores whether a small community with democratic values can survive in an autocratic system, revealing the human cost of defending independent journalism,” producer Loránd Balázs Imre tells Business Doc Europe.

In Carina NicHaouchine’s feature work-in-progress, she documents her younger brothers’ coming-of-age over their weekly Dungeons and Dragons sessions. “Watching these kids grow into fully fledged adults over the course of 90 minutes—witnessing all the highs and lows that come with that journey—makes for a really compelling narrative,” UK producer Steven Lake tells BDE.

The awards of the second Doxumentale were handed out June 19 with the Best Documentary award going to The Age of Water by Alfredo and Isabel Alcántara. The festival runs to June 22, serving up a feast of documentary storytelling across different media, comprising forty documentary films, ten live podcasts, readings from nine new non-fiction books, a curated kids’ programme and seven VX projects. Thereafter, selected films will show online to June 30. All awards…

Executive producer Salla Kozma (pictured) announced June 19 the launch of her new Monaco and Finland-based film and TV production company Pig & Horse Productions. She also announced a “dynamic slate” of high-quality documentaries and unscripted formats, foremost among which is the high-end doc Reflections of Gaugin which “delves into the mystifying world of infamous art, wealth and power.”

In Sheffield, Amilcar Infante and Sebastián González’s Unwelcomed has its European premiere in Journey, while two new Chilean projects are selected for MeetMarket. At Sunny Side of the Doc, 3 Chilean docs are selected across the market’s pitch sessions. “As the Ministry of Cultures, we remain committed to the audiovisual sector, supporting the presence of Chilean works and projects in major documentary markets and festivals,” says Carolina Arredondo, Minister of Cultures, Arts and Heritage.

The pitch event, to run during Ji.hlava Industry Days (Czech Republic, October 28–31), is dedicated to the “new generation of European producers, new formats, innovative trends, and visions for the future.” This year will see a special pitch section focused on Croatia, which is the Ji.hlava Industry guest country 2025. The deadline for applications is June 30.

Netflix has secured UK streaming rights to the feature documentary, The Cancer Conflict, directed by Thomas Meadmore and produced by Go Fish Films. The film, which delves into the personal journeys of two cancer patients navigating the complexities of treatment choices in an era rife with misinformation, is set to premiere on the platform on July 8. Sales are handled by Java Films.

At Dokumentale Good Media Pitch (June 12), Georgian director Ketevan Vashagashvili and producer Nino Chichua made their Impact presentation for 9-Month Contract, which shines the spotlight on Tbilisi’s unregulated surrogacy market. In the film, Zhana is undergoing her third surrogate pregnancy. “There is a lot of power imbalance between prospective foreign parents and surrogate mothers,” said Vashagashvili. “Because of their very different socioeconomic backgrounds, these women - Georgian surrogate mothers – often need legal protection, and they don't have access to it.”