Nick Cunningham

For many people bodybuilders are freaks, but to Hungarian director Anna Nemes they are beautiful living sculptures. In Beauty of the Beast, world-premiering at Sheffield DocFest, she accords to female bodybuilders the same seriousness as another director would to contemporary dancers, using every part of her filmmaking process to underline their inherent majesty and dignity. The director discusses her work with Business Doc Europe.

Producers of documentary, fiction film and drama series looking for finance or a co-production deal are invited to submit their projects intended for theatrical distribution, television broadcast and digital streaming. The deadline for submission is July 4 2022.

Back in 2012 director Rodrigo Reyes was the California court interpreter at the trial of 19-year old Sansón, accused of murder. After being found guilty he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. But Reyes was always troubled by the trial. “I never got to hear his story,” he says. “Everything was focused on a single moment, on the incident that brought him to court, but not on who he was or where he came from.” The director therefore set out to tell the personal history of Sansón.

Half a century before #MeToo, the revolutionary, iconoclastic, firebrand feminist Andrea Dworkin was calling out gender inequality and the pervasiveness of sexism. Dworkin was a woman whose political radicalism was shaped by the sexual and physical abuse she suffered, yet when alive she was applauded and derided in equal measure. In the feature doc selected for International Competition Pratibha Parmar reflects on one of the 20th Century’s most brilliant but polarizing figures.

As doors closed on 33rd Sunny Side of the Doc, organisers revealed that 2000 industry professionals from 67 countries (including almost 400 decision-makers) and 1100 accredited companies took part in the online event. This year, 48 projects from 22 countries were presented across 8 pitching sessions split into three major categories.

In Outsider, all that Indian-Nepali youngster Veeru wants is to find a friend and to be an equal part of the village. As he embarks on an adventurous journey from childhood to adolescence, the film reveals his most profound feelings - and the heavy burden he carries due to his father’s ancestral Nepalese roots. “Outside is a coming of age story where the theme of discrimination is approached by a young child with great maturity,” explains director Siddesh Shetty.

Italian Hugo Pratt is considered the originator of the graphic novel form, and one of its greatest exponents. Swiss director Stefano Knuchel has already made two documentaries about the comic maestro and returns to the subject in Hugo in Venice to complete the trilogy. This time Pratt’s most famous character, Corto Maltese, takes centre stage, Knuchel explained.

Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén’s Swedish/Irish co-production addresses the question of Irish identity through the medium of folk music, which is being embraced once more by a new generation of bold, outspoken and charismatic players. “These young angry humouristic and creative artists often come from places like hip hop or punk music, and they are rewriting and reinterpreting the traditional music creating entirely new sounds,” says co-director Lovén.

Producer Laurent Mini presented his latest project at SSD, concerning the satellite constellations that are forming miles over our heads as a result of the new race to control global communications, with the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk leading the charge. “Imagine that the bandwidth used to transport internet is like a pie. Each satellite consolation is a bite of that pie. And soon there won't be any left,” Mini told the SSD audience.

Elina Kewitz of Cologne-based New Docs arrives at Sunny Side with a brace of new titles, one of which, Ithaka - A Fight to Free Julian Assange by Ben Lawrence, has taken on even greater significance for buyers following the UK Home Secretary’s decision on June 17 to approve the US government’s request to extradite the Australian founder of Wikileaks.