Business Doc Europe

Esther Bannenberg oversees her second edition as chief of DocSalon, which kicks off February 13, running through to Feb 17. “What excites me most is bringing in the networking dynamics at DocSalon and the Archive Market,” she tells BDE, “to make sure that we facilitate business opportunities as well as strengthen the ties between creatives and industry execs [and] an open informal exchange on all levels, while serving the documentary eco systems to explore which innovations can help to overcome challenges and create new opportunities.” Bannenberg is joined in conversation by Tanja Meissner, Head of Berlinale Pro.

Indian filmmaker Madhusree Dutta could not understand why her mother, who died of Alzheimer’s in 2015, would talk so much about tigers, even though she had never mentioned seeing one before her illness. But after hearing the story of the eponymous US Flying Tiger planes that were operational in the Himalayas during WW2, things began to fall into place for Dutta, at which point she was inspired to embark on a genre-defying study of memory, war and infrastructure. Dutta discusses her new film with BDE.

Patric Chiha’s inspiration for his new documentary, selected for Berlin Panorama, came in September 2022 when he first saw images of young Russians crossing the border in Georgia, fleeing the Putin regime. “They were facing a situation I could not imagine. Their faces seemed to say a lot about their fragility, and the violence of our world,” the director reflects to Business Doc Europe.

The short documentary The Devil Is Busy comprises a day in the life of Tracii, the head of security at a women's healthcare clinic in Atlanta, Georgia, who works tirelessly to protect the women who are forced to fight through protesters to receive their abortion care. “We wanted to take people through what it means to be in the positions of the staff, the women who are working in this clinic day in and day out, because they are really on the front line of what has turned into a battle,” co-director Gandbhir states. “With many of the protesters outside, it’s like a holy war.”

In Hungry, world-premiering February 2 in IFFR’s Harbour section, Austrian director Susanne Brandstaetter offers a sobering account of how, in the not-so-distant future, humankind has allowed itself to become extinct. With no humans left on Earth to explain exactly why this, it is left to an alien visitor to the planet to determine the food-related sequence of events, the “cause and effect” that led to our demise as a species. The filmmaker serves up the conclusions for Business Doc Europe.

A feast for the eyes and ears, the hybrid Krakatoa, presented both theatrically within IFFR’s Harbour section and as an installation within Art Directions, recreates the volcanic explosion of 1883 which resulted in the loudest sound ever heard. It is a film with contemporary resonance, within an ecological sense. “It’s a goal to rethink our position with the planet… we have to make a kind of sacrifice to nature in order to appease it, in order for it to become stable again, and establish an equilibrium.”

The seventy-four titles, “hand-picked from thousands of submissions from around the world,” features 53 world premieres, 17 international premieres and 4 European premieres. At the heart of the festival are six juried competition sections judged by leadinginternational experts, as well as a €10,000 Audience Award. The program is anchored by the flagship competition section, the DOX:AWARD, which comes with a €10,000 prize for which 12 films will compete.

Organisers of Cinéma du reel have announced the 37 films selected for Competition in 2026. Running 7 to 117 minutes, and sourced from across the globe, the films “will once again showcase contemporary documentary in all its diversity, as world, international or French premieres,” the festival writes. The 48th edition of the Paris-based event runs March 21-28.

Movies that Matter will “move forward with a single-director structure” as of 16 April 2026, the festival says in an online post. Margje de Koning will take on the role of Managing Director-Trustee. Laurens Korteweg, who has served as Business Director-Trustee since September 2023, will leave the organisation following a carefully planned transition period. The decision has been taken in response to ongoing financial pressure and is aimed at safeguarding the organisation’s future, the festival writes.

Oscar-nominated actress Fernanda Torres talks to Petra Costa, herself nominated for a feature Doc Academy Award in 2020 for The Edge of Democracy, about the latter’s latest work, Apocalypse in the Tropics, nominated in the Bafta Best Documentary category 2026. The film examines the influence of evangelical Christianity on far-right politics in Brazil, especially during Jair Bolsonaro’s term of office (2019-23). In 2025 Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison after he was found guilty of orchestrating a coup d'état to overturn the 2022 election results.

In her feature doc Angelica Ruffier recalls a teenage crush she had on a particular teacher, while at the same time dealing with the recent death of her father. “The director, through an amazing craft of acting and directing, gives us a perceptive on womanhood too rarely portrayed in cinema…[she is] a very unique voice who made us travel through generations charged with loneliness with absolute honesty and radical tenderness.”

After nearly fifty years under wraps, the film, which was conceived and shot by the legendary William Greaves and directed by his son David Greaves, spotlights footage from a 1972 gathering of luminaries of the Harlem renaissance. Last month, NEON received 18 Oscar nominations for the 98th Academy Awards, the second highest amount for any motion picture studio.