INTERVIEWS

VdR Int’l Comp: Saudades Eternas by Emma Boccanfuso

0
In her new film, French director Emma Boccanfuso follows the remarkable Mother Courage-like Sueli, a flamboyant local woman living in a Rio favela and fighting to hold her extended family together, while running her own makeshift bar and enjoying plenty of gossip with the neighbours. “I very quickly found myself propelled into the heart of the home and the intimacy of this family,” the director tells BDE. “From there, a deep friendship was born, to the point that I have been coming back several times a year to see them for the past ten years.”

VdR Short Film Comp: Une chambre à elles by Lucia Martinez...

0
In her short film Une chambre à elles A Room of Their Own), three women, Claude-Emmanuelle, Régina and Nicole, apply make-up before going out. As we watch, all three reflect on intimate aspects of their lives, from suicide to gender transition to the strength that can be derived from ‘pink femininity’. “I don’t wear make-up myself, but I’ve always been drawn to this ritual,” the director tells BDE. “These are often moments when confidences emerge naturally, when intimate stories are more easily shared.”

VdR Burning Lights Comp: Club Heaven by Jona Honer

0
When Dutch filmmaker Jona Honer first visited China, he soon worked out that the easiest way to connect with the young and extremely affluent sub-strata of Chinese society was through their favourite nightclubs. He was also fascinated by the rituals of capitalism, which resembled more a religion in terms of its structure and the social support it offered. “They [the club goers] create their own symbols, maybe without knowing it consciously,” Honer tells BDE. “Every religion has its own symbols. They create their own value system…it’s more than a night out.”

Visions du Réel Int’l Comp: Dentro by Elsa Amiel

0
We don’t know why the prisoners within the high-security Volterra jail are serving time, but under the supervision of Venice Golden Lion-winning theatrical director Armando Punzo, who has entered the prison every day for the past 38 years, they are producing wonderful theatre. In Dentro, French director Elsa Amiel chronicles the process. “I wanted to capture the atmosphere of the prison — a place once known as one of Italy’s worst, transformed through theatre into a place of avant-garde creation,” she tells Business Doc Europe.

Visions du Réel Burning Lights: Time and Tide by Vee Shi

0
Melbourne-based Chinese director Vee Shi may have set out to make a fictionalised account of the lives of his parents, but the resulting film is as viscerally verité as one can imagine, telling of an unhappy marriage, domestic abuse and having to deal with parental illness and financial struggle. “It's not 100% factual information, but it's an accurate representation of the emotional truth,” the director tells Business Doc Europe.

Visions du Réel Burning Lights: The Echo of the Herd by...

0
Didier, the central character in The Echo Of The Herd (La voix du troupeau) is like one of those sad-eyed clowns you see in old silent movies. Deaf since birth and still mourning the loss of his brother Claude, he looks for solace in his work on a cattle farm in Auvergne. Now well into middle-age, he still takes a child-like joy in tending the animals and building fences - but when the cattle suffer, so does he. The director pairing of Matthias Joulaud and Lucien Roux discuss their film with Business Doc Europe.

NEWS

Programme of the 41st DOK.fest Munich

0
DOK.fest Munich has unveiled the programme for its 41st edition. 106 films from 49 countries will be screened, 23 of which will have their world premiere, and a further 59 films will have their international or German premiere. Films will compete for three main prizes, the VIKTORIAs for International and German Competitions, and for Cinema of Urgency. This year, the programme team selected from 1,440 submissions – a new record for the festival. DOK.fest Munich runs this year May 6 to 18.

Visions du Réel Industry: Swiss Films Previews 2026

0
Six new Swiss doc projects, ripe for selection at festivals during 2026, will be presented April 22 in Nyon to industry professionals from the international sales, distribution and finance sectors, as well as festival programmers from across the globe. Thirteen more will be presented within the Prix RTS and newly established Migros Culture Percentage Story Lab. What’s more, there’s a hatful of Swiss films across the festival’s competition and non-competitive sections. Swiss Films documentary topper Charlotte Ducos puts BDE in the picture.

EURODOCMED 2026 cohort; EURODOC projects at VdR

0
From April 27 to May 1, 23 participants from 13 countries across the Mediterranean and MENA region will gather in Ajaccio, Corsica for a five-day workshop led by Alexandre Cornu and Diana El Jeiroudi. “At a time when unjust and devastating wars continue to affect parts of the Arab world, we believe it is more essential than ever to support documentary projects and voices from the region, and to foster meaningful collaboration and co-production between Western Asia, Europe and the Mediterranean,” organisers write.

Cannes Docs unveils Docs-in-Progress Showcase program

0
The Docs-in-Progress program partners with institutions from around the world to exhibit carefully selected works at final stages of production and which are looking to hit the circuit within the coming weeks or months. Each of the eight showcases features four projects, presented in the form of a live pitch and a 10-minute excerpt of the rough-cut, designed to catch the attention of decision-makers, festival programmers, and sales agents. Cannes Docs runs 14-19 May 2026.

Doc Alliance Award 2026 nominations unveiled

0
The 16 films competing for this year’s Doc Alliance Awards were announced April 15. Each of the seven European documentary festivals that make up the Doc Alliance network, together with this year’s guest festival GAIFF, the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival, has put forward one short and one feature-length documentary from its previous programme. The Doc Alliance Award will be presented on 19 May in Cannes during the Doc Day Lunch at the Marché du Film.

Doc selections for Cannes ACID 2026

0
Three feature documentaries and one doc hybrid are selected for the Cannes sidebar section dedicated to independent, ground-breaking cinema. “The films presented are all gestures that bring us together—stories rooted in a poetic reality that is joyful, unexpected, but above all free and unformatted. They thus emerge as powerful acts of resistance—and of hope,” the ACID programmers collectively write.

REVIEWS

VdR Int’l Comp review: From Dawn to Dawn by Xisi Sofia Ye Chen

0
A quietly compelling and measured portrait of a life marked by migration, displacement, and crime, From Dawn to Dawn (La noche de la infancia)—the debut feature of Xisi Sofia Ye Chen—offers an unsentimental look at an older brother who, after operating for years as a gangster, resolves to confront his past and consider a profound change of direction.

Visions du Réel National Comp review: Safe Spaces by Sarah Horst

0
Three courageous women explore their sexual longings, and open up to their vulnerabilities. Each is interesting enough to have been the subject of her own documentary (which would have been more desirable). Nevertheless, all three deserve recognition for the courage with which they have welcomed us into their midst. That is strength - and whatever it is they’re looking for, they have already found something within themselves which most of us will probably never possess.

Visions du Réel Burning Lights review: Comme un château fort by Lou Colpé

0
Comme un château fort is less about mourning, more a form of mourning itself. Lou Colpé’s debut feature seems especially worthwhile for those of us who have lost loved ones or whose friends recently have. It shows how silence and presence are key to providing the support we need where words often fail.

CPH:DOX F:ACT Competition: Hell’s Army by Richard Rowley

0
n absorbing and provocative documentary, sometimes featuring moments of graphic violence, the evocatively titled Hell’s Army follows the brutal rise of Russian mercenary group The Wagner Group and its bloody work from Donbas through to Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic, before its brutal return to full-scale war in Ukraine.

POPULAR POSTS