Nick Cunningham

The brothers talk to BDE about their Oscar-shortlisted animated doc telling the shocking story of the US camp that housed Hitler’s top scientists who were captured during World War II. More importantly it presents the testimonies of Jewish refugees, some survivors of the Holocaust, that were enlisted to interrogate and stand guard over the Nazis, before the true reason for their incarceration becomes evident...

The legendary Frederick Wiseman spoke to E. Chai Vasharelyi and Jimmy Chin (co-directors of Free Solo, 2018) about their Oscar shortlisted feature documentary The Rescue (National Geographic), which details the audacious 2018 mission to free 12 boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand.

“It is horrifying; it is beautiful; it is an exercise in hope, making the film,” Bafta-winning and Oscar-nominated Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing) tells Camilla Nielsson of her Academy Award-shortlisted feature doc President. The film details the 2018 Zimbabwean presidential election as 40-year-old opposition candidate Nelson Chamisa runs against the incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The work of Algerian filmmaker Hassen Ferhani will be showcased in the 2022 Visions du Réel Atelier. The tribute will include a full retrospective of his films, as well as a carte blanche and a masterclass. Ferhani is As the third distinguished guest of this year’s doc fest (April 7-17) , joining the US director/DOP Kirsten Johnson and Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio.

Doclisboa has unveiled the first retrospective of its 20th edition, which will take place 6-16 October 2022. “The festival proposes a focus on the colonial past of France and Portugal, two countries that waged wars in Africa around the same period, whilst hiding behind benign narratives, and, since then, resisting confrontation with their own history,” write organisers.

DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival has announced the festival programme that can be watched online from 31 January to 6 February 2022. The opening film is Susanna Helke’s Ruthless Times – Songs of Care. Eight docs selected for national competition, eleven for international competition.

EDP is a Prague-based co-production, funding and distribution platform tailor-made for Central and Eastern European documentaries, every year connecting filmmakers and decision makers - producers, broadcasters, distributors and festival programmers - from around the world. The Platform is organised by the Institute of Documentary Film in cooperation with One World IHRDFF.

Prague-based sales agent Filmotor has acquired world rights for two debuts directed by female directors focusing on life in contemporary Russia; Tolyatti Adrift, directed by Laura Sisteró and produced by Barcelona based production Boogaloo Films, and Nastia Korkia’s GES-2 (Venice 2021) which follows one of the biggest art reconstructions of our age, unfolding in Moscow.

With no Doc Salon in 2022, Dennis Ruh, Director of the European Film Market, and Martina Valentina Baumgartner, EFM Documentary Coordinator, answer questions posed by Business Doc Europe about how they plan to tackle docs, the needs of doccers and all issues pertaining to the documentary sector during the upcoming edition, running 10-17 February.

It’s not an easy watch, starting with a separation between a mother and a daughter with autism, but Pénélope My Love is a film with love at its heart, and one which chronicles the director’s ever desperate attempts to normalise a child who was always destined to live her life in a world parallel to that of others. The director talks to BDE.