Nick Cunningham

With a theme of ‘challenge’, the fourth edition of the Al Jazeera Balkans International Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC) will be held online and in Sarajevo 10-14 September. Twenty-three docs in selection across 4 sections, 11 in Competition. Three key prizes to be awarded.

Discussion to address the crisis now underway in Afghanistan with special attention to the current situation of filmmakers and Afghan artists in general. Moderated by journalist Giuliano Battiston, panellists to include Afghan filmmakers Sahraa Karimi and Sarah Mani, IFFR’s Vanja Kaludjercic, Orwa Nyrabia (IDFA) and EFA’s Mike Downey and Matthijs Wouter Knol.

Imminent September 1 deadline for DocCeleratorPitch development program running September 27-29, while DocCeleratorRoughCut online editing and distribution workshop (October 27-28) has deadline of September 30.

Leading Swiss doc fest announces first deadline of November 8 both for films of all lengths (finished as of October 2021) as well as Industry projects ready for submission. Second deadline: 17 December. Call for entries opens September 2. The 53rd Visions du Réel runs 7-17 April 2022.

“Within a couple of days of the [August 19] press articles being published, we had been silently locked out of our email accounts and all traces of our presence at the festival - names, photos, information about our work - were scrubbed from the website,” they claim. “What is the future of the artistic programme at Sheffield DocFest? How does it fit into the new vision of the board?” they further ask.

Fifteen docs selected. Nominations will be made public on 9 November 2021 following the votes of 4,000 European Film Academy members. EFA also presents a new VOD platform for its members, which has been developed as part of a 18-month digital transformation programme. The European Film Awards ceremony will be held December 11 in Berlin.

Between 16-25 September, festival to present 16-25 September 40 docs on the current state of global human rights. This year’s focus is on stories of people whose rights are being brutally violated and who are fighting for change as activists. Films to be screened online in Germany and offline in selected Berlin cinemas. Ten films to compete for Willy Brandt Documentary Film Award.

Marta Popivoda’s Landscapes of Resistance picked up the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Doc (valued at €3000) during the 2021 Sarajevo Film Festival closing ceremony (August 19). Special Jury Award (€2500) went to Stefan Pavlović’s Looking for Horses. Vlad Petri’s The Same Dream received a Special Mention while Ahmet Necdet Çupur’s Les Enfants terribles won the Human Rights Award (€3000).

Filmmaker Vlad Petri discusses his powerful and visually enthralling hybrid short doc about the trauma of war, as suffered by a young Romanian soldier serving in Afghanistan and the wounded Afghan child that he encounters. The film received a Sarajevo Documentary Competition Special Jury Mention during the award ceremony on August 19.

Of course, Turkish siblings Zeynep and Mahmut are not ‘terrible’ at all. They’re smart, articulate and ambitious, but denied at each turn by religious and societal conservatism. Brother Ahmet, who returned to the family house after a 20-year absence, chronicles their lives as they seek independence and/or emancipation. He explains more to BDE. (Human Rights Award, Sarajevo Doc Comp)