Nick Cunningham

In the film, written and directed by Italian docmaker Susanna della Sala and which world premieres August 9 in Locarno Semaine de la Critique, a forlorn community flourishes thanks to the healing power of art. Producers are Marco Visalberghi and Sherin Salvetti for DocLab.

The publication follows both the recent surge in the programming of Ukrainian content at international film festivals and the July 1 IDF online panel on the ‘decolonization of old ideological constructs and film industry practices,’ which identified the need for Ukrainian programmers and curators to be active within the decision-making processes. “We have a unique (like never before) chance to become visible, [but] we are still pushed by the fear of being invisible,” says Victoria Leshchenko, Docudays UA Program Director.

In his documentary selected for Locarno Semaine de la Critique, Swiss filmmaker Jan Baumgartner, whose primary line of work is nursing, tells an astonishing tale of hope, persistence and devotion as a team of international forensic scientists seek to identify, via DNA analysis, the missing victims of the Balkans War. Location by location, object by object, bone by bone. Baumgartner discusses his film with BDE.

Dutch filmmaker and visual artist Douwe Dijkstra discusses his short film Neighbour Abdi, selected for Pardi di Domani Competition at Locarno 2022, which deploys a freewheeling and visually engaging aesthetic in which the filmmaking process, and especially the creation of green screen special effects, is particularly fore-fronted.

The Swiss/Spanish project, comprising a portrait of four young people in the impoverished Extremadura region of South West Spain and set against a background of legal hare hunting, is presented at Locarno Pro 2022. “This story deals with universal issues at the local level, and attempts to connect primitive violence with modern technology communication,” say the filmmakers.

The Iceland festival’s two-day impact workshop will run 6 and 7 October and is designed to support documentary film projects in (further) developing their impact goals and strategies. Organisers are inviting documentary film projects in production on environmental issues and climate injustice for participation. Deadline for submission: August 15.

Five films are announced for From the Earth to the Moon section, each of which look to “build bridges between history and the future.” So far, five films are additionally selected for the Heart Beat section that “brings a diversity of representations of the art world.” Filmmakers given the Lisbon nod include Werner Herzog and Maria Augusta Ramos. The 20th anniversary edition of the festival runs October 6 to 16.

CineLink Talks, the conference arm of CineLink Industry Days (Sarajevo FF), offers a rich programme of masterclasses, debates and seminars, open for all festival and industry guests. Five panels organized in partnership with Documentary Campus will touch upon distribution challenges, new funding strategies for social impact films, middle players in film industry and the responsibility of documentary filmmakers in fake-news era. For all doc-related panels, read on.

The jury of the Wrocław (Poland) festival awarded the €15,000 prize to Mitra Farahani’s doc that comprises a cinematic and playful dialogue between director and writer Ebrahim Golestan, who is about to turn 100, and 92-year-old master filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. The film world-premiered at Berlinale 2022.

Ukrainian Alisa Kovalenko’s Expedition 49 and Israeli Renen Schorr’s Rabbi Heller Blues join ten fiction projects in the 2022 Work in Progress selection. The projects will compete for two awards: the Post Republic Award (€40,000 in kind), and the Turkish National Radio Television Award (€25,000 in cash). Plus Sarajevo FF Doc Competition and Docu Talents From the East 2022 selections.