Nick Cunningham

Rithy Panh’s Everything Will Be Ok in Main Competition, three world premiere documentaries in Encounters and six docs in Berlinale Special section, including Lucrecia Martel’s Terminal norte (North Terminal) and a world prem of Andrew Dominik’s This Much I Know To Be True, with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

Indian filmmakers Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas discuss their festival hit Writing With Fire with acclaimed Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta. The film, shortlisted for the 2022 Documentary Feature Academy Award, concerns the Indian news agency Khabar Lahariya, run by Dalit (low-caste) Chief Reporter Meera and her feisty understudy, crime reporter Suneeta.

FIPADOC Industry kicks off today, January 18, once again with a stated intention to join the international and French doc industries in a frenzy of co-pro collaboration. And right now in Biarritz that means face to face interactivity, which is very much to the satisfaction of festival chief Christine Camdessus, who talks to Business Doc Europe.

“It’s a meditation on trans humanity, and I’ve never seen another film like it,” comments Canadian actor, producer and activist Elliot Page about Nicolò Bassetti’s new film, a coming-of-age story about four friends who share important turning points in their lives and their gender transition. The film is set to world premiere in Berlinale Panorama.

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.

Eleven highly diverse docs are selected for a 2022 Berlinale Forum Main Programme designed to demonstrate the pull of precisely observed matter. “However much the pandemic may have paralysed life in our societies, filmmakers worldwide have lost none of their inventiveness and artistic desire. The works…are a dazzling demonstration of this,” say festival programmers.

The Swiss docfest (7 to 17 April 2022) will celebrate the life and work of revered Italian director, screenwriter and producer Marco Bellocchio with the presentation of its Honorary Award. The homage will include a Masterclass and a retrospective of selected works of ‘one the most significant oeuvres in contemporary filmmaking.’

American filmmaker and musician Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson discusses his Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), about the star-packed but shamefully mothballed Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, with Academy Award-winning doc director Asif Kapadia (Amy, Senna, Diego Maradona).

Fifteen films unveiled in BAFTA Documentary longlist. Flee additionally listed in both Animated Film and Film Not in English Language categories. Summer of Soul also in Best Editing category while The Most Beautiful Boy In The World listed in non-English Language category. Second round of voting opens January 14, closes January 27. Noms to be announced February 3, with third round of voting scheduled Feb 9 to March 8. The Bafta ceremony to take place March 13.

DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, originally planned as a hybrid event for cinemas and online, will now be held as an online-only event 31 Jan to 6 Feb due to current Covid restrictions in Finland. The new industry event DocPoint FINEST Market, showcasing new Finnish and Estonian docs, will accompany the festival.