Nick Cunningham

Women will take centre stage in the 2022 CPH:FORUM line-up (March 28-31), both as characters and storytellers. The event will feature new projects by Jialing Zhang, Ilinca Calugareanu, Tova Mozard, Elizabeth Lo and Lana Wilson among others. Out of the 72 filmmakers and producers from 33 countries, most plan to attend CPH:FORUM 2022 physically, organisers confirm.

The former BFI London and Sydney FF director talks to BDE about her new role at Sheffield Doc Fest which sees a number of other new appointments in 2022, including Asif Kapadia as Guest Curator. “Fundamentally the real challenge (and it's quite different from approaching a festival pre-pandemic) is thinking about what the shape of the festival needs to be for the future,” says Stewart.

The five Documentary Feature nominations are Ascension, Attica, Flee, Summer of Soul and Writing With Fire. Flee also nominated in International Feature and Animation category. Short Documentary nominations are Audible, Lead Me Home, The Queen of Basketball, Three Songs for Benazir and When We Were Bullies. The 94th Oscars ceremony will take place March 27 and broadcast in more than 200 territories worldwide.

With a record number of world, international and European premieres, the International, Newcomers and >>Film Forward Competition sections showcase “a series of fascinating movies that cast a critical and acute glance at the most crucial and heated issues of our times.” International Comp Golden Alexander prize guarantees a place on the pre-selection shortlist for the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

This year’s Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary has been awarded to Simon Lereng Wilmont for his Sundance winner A House Made of Splinters. “The jury has been challenged by a wonderful selection of documentaries that have surprised us, made us cry and provoked us with a wide range of stories and ways of storytelling that truly has made us proud of the filmmakers of the Nordic region,” says the citation.

During this weekend’s closing ceremony of DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, Ruthless Times – Songs of Care won the National Competition with Golden Land receiving a Special Mention. Ruslan Fedotov’s Where Are We Headed won the International Competition, with Jessica Beshir’s Faya Dayi receiving a Special Mention.

It sounds like a Bergman title, and in fellow Swede Maud Nycander’s tearjerker of a doc, we are delivered exactly what that title promises. Love, then divorce. But as the director explains to Business Doc Europe, love doesn’t just disappear after separation…

It may be visually dynamic, artistically audacious and propelled by a blow your wig off soundtrack, but Sao Paolo: Open Wound is first and foremost a film of protest, and a very angry one at that, against Brazilian president Bolsonaro and his sanctioning of both racism and grotesque levels of intolerance towards Brazil’s LGBTQ+ community.

Five nominations within the Documentary category (Becoming Cousteau, Cow, Flee, The Rescue and Summer of Soul). Posy Dixon’s Keyboard Fantasies gets nomination in Outstanding British Debut category. Flee additionally nominated in Best Animation while Summer of Soul receives addition nomination in Best Editing category.

The popular Danish schlager singer Johnny Hansen, of the band Kandis, inspires derision and devotion in equal measure. He is deemed crass among sophisticated city folk while considered a Messiah by many in Denmark’s provinces. Jesper Dalgaard’s poignant doc favours the latter constituency, and in the process reveals their rich and at times heartbreaking sense of humanity. The director explains his film to BDE.