Nick Cunningham

Call for submissions for IDFA Bertha Fund grant program in two categories: Project Development and Production & Post-production. Target is docmakers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.

Laura Marques’ Nebulae 2020 project embraces loners, romantics, dedicated conservationists and beatniks alike, focussing on the thousand-plus people who, every year, climb high towers to guard against forest fires across Portugal.

Miguel Moras Cabral’s Lisbon doc pitch is intriguing, that of an ostensibly normal kid by day whose tears at night will create floods, disasters and miracles. The project is part of the Arché project development lab dedicated to directors and producers from Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ibero-American countries.

German filmmaker Annegret Sachse refers to her self-produced documentary essay Russia today as “an act of personal, cultural resistance against political alienation”. The feature doc is selected for 2020 East Silver Market.

“We want to derail our participants a bit,” says Ji.hlava Head of Industry Jarmila Outratová, ahead of the doc fest’s October 30 presentation of its Emerging Producers programme, “by going back to their early days… what was their motivation then, and checking if it is still out there.”

The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR) has renewed its demand to Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release film producer Moataz Abdelwahab, who further faces the “fabricated illogical accusation” of joining a terrorist group while in custody.

Opening film: 'Nothing but the Sun' by Paraguayan-Swiss Arami Ullón. IDFA also announces Feature-Length, First Appearance, Mid-Length and DocLab competitions titles, the non-competitive DocLab Spotlight section and Creative Use of Archive competition. In competition sections 57% of the films are by women.

Swiss sales agent to give €2000 award for winning project’s international potential at Co-production Forum

For the DocLisboa opener, director José Barahona took to the waters Fitzcarraldo-like on an odyssey into the Amazonian rain forest in search of the hybrid Nheengatu language, originally the language of the conquerors, now the language of resistance.

As Sheffield prepares to pump up the volume ahead of the Oct 31 European prem of 'Sisters with Transistors', first time feature director Lisa Rovner plugs in with Business Doc Europe.