Nick Cunningham

The renowned eight-month long international workshop will accommodate eight doc projects “with ambitions to enter the international market, focusing on editing, distribution and marketing strategy development,” say organisers. Three one-week residential workshops cover stages of Rough Cut, Fine Cut and Near Picture Lock. Applications open on December 6. Final deadline: January 26, 2023.

In Dutch filmmaker Eliane Esther Bots’ multi award-winning short doc, interpreters from the Balkan region must apply the same level of neutrality and detachment to the evidence and testimonies they hear at the Yugoslavia Tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague, whether it be from victims or those suspected/accused of perpetrating war crimes. The film is submitted in the Academy Awards Short Doc category and nominated at the upcoming IDA Documentary Awards.

The Swiss sales agency has acquired the international rights to the feature doc directed by Arnaud Robert and Paolo Woods, which world premiered as the opening film of the 63rd Festival dei Popoli. The film is produced by Luc Peter and Katia Monla of Intermezzo Films (Switzerland), in co-production with RTS Unité des films documentaires, SSR-SRG, and ARTE G.E.I.E.

Submissions for this year’s Radio & Audio Funding Award (RAFA) close Wednesday 30th November 2022. The award is made to an emerging audio creative based anywhere in the world for an original audio documentary for radio or podcast. Applications are also invited for the annual Film & TV Funding Award, valued at £100,000, with a deadline of January 21 2022.

The Museum of the Moving Image in New York will host a retrospective of eight documentaries by Polish filmmaker Łoziński, whose The Balcony Movie is in the running for a European Film Award and has been entered into the Oscar 2023 race for top Feature Doc. The MOMI programme runs December 2-4.

At its yearly general assembly, Documentary Association of Europe (DAE) elected two new executive board members, Gugi Gumilang and Natalia Imaz, while Marion Schmidt was re-elected for another term of three years. This brings DAE’s executive board to five people: Chairperson Julianna Ugrin and Brigid O’Shea, as founding board members will continue for another year.

‘I want to reclaim my body,’ says director Mania Akbari at the start of the film, as we watch her in a bathtub filled with black water - an octopus clung to her chest. And reclaim it she does in this documentary that both re-examines the male gaze in Iranian cinema and sets out to demythologize the so called era of female liberation in pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema.

Apolonia, Apolonia wins Best Film in Int’l Comp, Manifesto wins Best Film in Envision Comp. Both awards are valued at €15,000. The IDFA Award for Best Directing (worth €5,000) in Int’l Competition goes to Simon Chambers for Much Ado About Dying (Ireland, United Kingdom) while the Best Editing nod in Int’l Comp Mario Steenbergen went to Journey Through Our World (The Netherlands). All awards…

Mirka Duijn and Nina Spiering’s part-archive doc seeks to unravel the mystery of Shangri-La, the mystical land written about so evocatively by British author James Hilton in his 1933 novel ‘Lost Horizon.’ But it was only in 2001 that the place officially existed, after much investment and a very inventive marketing campaign, explains co-director Mirka Duijn.

With the slogan of ‘Feels Like Home’ the 8th Northern Lights Nordic/Baltic Film Festival kicks off November 20, running to November 30. Created to serve Belarusian audiences, this year’s event will be presented in-person in neighbouring Estonia and Lithuania, given the political turmoil within Belarus itself. However, Belarusians can access most of the programme online. Founder Volia Chajkouskaya talks to BDE.