Nick Cunningham

Artur Liebhart of Polish distributor Against Gravity and doc fest Millennium Docs Against Gravity briefed Business Doc Europe on recent all-rights pick-ups of IDFA 2021 titles plus selections for the 2022 festival slate.

Dutch director Shamira Raphaëla talks to Business Doc Europe about the force of nature that is Shabu, a 14-year-old kid living in one of Rotterdam’s roughest estates, but blessed with boundless talent, entrepreneurial savvy and a ton of teenage charm.

Tor Vadseth, CEO of the Norwegian Nordnorsk Filmsenter, explains to BDE the appeal of the North Pitch - Below Zero project workshop, whose target audience is filmmakers, producers and decision makers whose common interest is documentaries thematically rooted in the Northern Polar region, and which is eyeing up its 13th (and live) edition.

“We're in the business of emotions. We're not selling chairs or glasses. We’re selling stories,” First Hand Films’ Esther van Messel tells Business Doc Europe as she eyes up the prospect of industry gatherings once more at IDFA 2021.

The Lightdox IDFA 2021 slate may seem small, but that’s exactly the way company boss Anna Berthollet wants it. What’s more three of those films are in official IDFA selection, including the world-premiere of Serbian Srđan Keča’s Museum of the Revolution in Luminous section. Berthollet explains her rationale to Business Doc Europe.

Netherlands-based Movies that Matter human rights festival is looking for documentary film projects on human rights and/or social or environmental issues to participate in its Take on Film & Impact programme on 24 and 25 March 2022. The deadline for submission is midnight on 30 November.

The Dutch documentary doyen is having one of those dream IDFAs. Not only did he produce the opening film Four Journeys, the festival is celebrating the 25th anniversary of one of The Netherlands’ most influential docs, Amsterdam Global Village, one Van Huystee’s first feature doc productions. And to cap it all he’s jetting off to NY work on Saturday to cheer on They Call Me Babu (IDFA 2019), which is competing for an Emmy.

Turn Your Body to the Sun comprises a journey both to the past and to the east. Aliona Van der Horst follows Dutch writer Sana Valiulina (also with Russian, Tatar and with Estonian roots) as she attempts to understand the fate not only of her father who, like millions of others, was subject to the whims of two despots, Stalin and Hitler, but also that of the 3.3 million Soviet POWs who were starved to death during the war.

The IDFA Bertha Fund Managing Director and IDFA Deputy Director explains to Business Doc Europe how the fund’s role has taken on even more significance over the past 18 months, and how proud she is of this year’s “super harvest” of IBF-supported films.

Open, illuminating, sad and powerful, and often painfully honest and confrontational, Four Journeys examines the impact on both the director and his family of China’s one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979.