Nick Cunningham

The 19th edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity kicks off May 13 running to May 22, before heading online from May 24 to June 5. Presented across numerous Polish locations, this year the city of Lodz becomes an eighth epicentre for festival activities. Twelve films to compete for the core Millennium Bank Award (valued at €8,000). Eight local titles will compete for the Best Polish Film Award (€3,000).

Three Minutes – A Lengthening, written and directed by Bianca Stigter, and Eva Vitija’s Loving Highsmith are selected for the 7th edition of Sydney FF’s Europe! Voices of Women programme, presented in collaboration with European Film Promotion (EFP). The two docs, both sold by Autlook Filmsales, join fiction features by eight other outstanding European women filmmakers. Sydney FF runs 8-19 June.

The La Rochelle-based market, enjoying its 33rd edition, will take place 20-23 June, following two online editions. With a theme of New Voices, 48 projects from 22 countries will be presented across 8 pitch sessions. Over the four days, 2,200 industry delegates from 60 different countries are expected be in attendance.

Belgrade’s ‘boutique’ film festival focusing on non-fiction cinema runs May 11-18. The festival opens with the Serbian premiere of the Sundance Institute-supported Museum of the Revolution, directed by Srđan Keča, and will close with the regional premiere of the Ukrainian film Outside by Olha Zhurba, about the life of a Roma boy in Ukraine. Slovenian Karpo Godina and Serbian Želimir Žilnik will be honoured with retrospectives.

The films range from Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings to Martin Scorsese’s Italianamerican to Patrick Keiller’s London. “This selection is personal to me, as someone who grew up in Hackney in the 1970s and 1980s. I didn’t come from an art or film background. It was quite profound to know that it was possible for someone to make films like these,” says Kapadia.

Hot Docs 2022 wrapped May 8, bringing 225 films from 63 countries to audiences in Toronto cinemas and across Canada online. The Best Canadian Feature Doc Award ($10,000 cash prize) was presented to Geographies of Solitude by Jacquelyn Mills. Best International Feature Doc Award went to Blue Island by Chan Tze. Audience Awards went to Eternal Spring (feature, CAN) by Jason Loftus, Sexual Healing (mid-length, NL) by Elsbeth Fraanje and Dad Can Dance (short, CAN) by Jamie Ross.

BAFTA and Academy award-winning director and acclaimed cineaste Martin Scorsese will narrate a brand new feature documentary on prolific and influential British filmmaking duo, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Directed by two-time BAFTA and Emmy winning David Hinton, Altitude will handle international sales and release the yet to be titled project in the UK & Ireland.

Hot Docs announced May 5 the pitch winners at this year’s Hot Docs Forum, the Festival’s international co-financing market event and flagship industry event. Prize money totalled $50,000 CDN, including $40,000 in first look Pitch Prizes and the $10,000 CMF-Hot Docs Forum Canadian Pitch Prize.

Fragile Memory by Igor Ivanko (UA / SK) celebrates its international premiere, two world premieres in the Shorts Competition. New Yad Vashem Award for Bianca Stigter’s Steve McQueen-produced Three Minutes: A Lengthening. This year’s guests of honour are directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West (RBG), who will attend the festival with three of their latest films, which center on larger-than-life women and non-binary people.

The 18th edition of the Docu Talents from the East, the presentation of top new doc projects from CEE, will take place August 15 during Cinelink Industry Days at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The deadline for submission is May 15. “We are looking forward to this year’s physical event, after holding two previous Docu Talents’ editions online only,” says Marek Hovorka, director of Ji.hlava IDFF which has curated the programme since 2005.