Nick Cunningham

The Danish film Into The Ice by Lars Ostenfeld is selected as the opening film of this year's CPH:DOX, and will compete in the festival’s main competition: DOX:AWARD. The March 21 world premiere will be held in Copenhagen. The festival runs 23 March to 3 April 2022 with screenings and events in and about Copenhagen and viewings hosted simultaneously in a number of cities around Denmark.

NY-based Chicken & Egg Pictures has announced their latest recipients and finalists for the 2022 Chicken & Egg Award, that recognizes advanced-career women and gender nonconforming filmmakers with unrestricted funding. Six directors, including Norwegian Margreth Olin and Brazilian Petra Costa, will each receive a $50,000 grant, and two directors will receive a $15,000 finalist grant.

SHOWTIME Documentary Films announced Feb 1 that it has acquired worldwide rights to Nothing Compares directed by Kathryn Ferguson. The film, which was selected for Sundance World Cinema Documentary Competition, presents an authored, richly cinematic portrait of iconic singer Sinéad OʼConnor through a contemporary feminist lens.

Artistic director Kati Juurus gives the lowdown on the Finnish docfest, running online (and nationwide) through February 6. With eight films selected for Finnish Competition and 11 for International Competition, 2022 also sees the launch of the DocPoint FINEST Market that continues online to February 13. Opening film is Susanna Helke’s Ruthless Times: Songs of Care.

The doc forum is an annual international documentary incubation-cum-pitching event for Indian and Asian filmmakers. The forum focuses on intensive development of creative storytelling skills and creation of co-production opportunities. Three sessions running in March April and May 2022. Submissions deadline: February 6. Plus new RoundGlass Sustain Award announced.

Grand Jury prize in World Doc Comp goes to All That Breathes (India/UK) while Simon Lereng Wilmont’s A House Made Of Splinters (Denmark) wins Directing Prize. Alex Pritz’s The Territory picks up two gongs: Audience Award and Special Jury Award: Documentary Craft. In US Comp, the Grand Jury Prize goes to The Exiles by Ben Klein & Violet Columbus.

These are heady days for Field of Vision, the New York-based filmmaker-driven visual journalism unit, with three doc features having screened back to back at Sundance and a short doc in the running for an Oscar nomination. FoV chief Charlotte Cook gets visionary with Business Doc Europe.

The Global Pitch of Sunny Side of the Doc will be held Feb 22 and 23. The aim of the two-day online pitch session, sponsored by Al Jazeera Documentary Channel and Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC), is to facilitate the international financing and co-production of projects focusing on Women's Voices. Twelve projects announced.

Kirsten Johnson, whose Dick Johnson is Dead was nominated for the Feature Doc Oscar in 2021, spoke to Jessica Kingdon about her 2022 Oscar-shortlisted film Ascension, which explores cinematically the pursuit of the ‘Chinese Dream’. “I can feel your pleasure as filmmakers and cinematographers in particular, and also I have to say I do think it’s really an ode to the great art of documentary producing,” said Kirsten.

Italian master docmaker Gianfranco Rosi (Notturno) spoke to Robert Greene about his Oscar-shortlisted film Procession, about six men who suffered sexual abuse by Catholic priests but who nevertheless find empowerment together by creating fictional scenes depicting rituals of power in the church.