Nick Cunningham

Leading Iberian docfest Doclisboa (October 21-31) will honour the life and work of Cecilia Mangini, one of the prominent figures in post-War Italy documentary cinema, who died earlier this year. The festival also announces first titles in its Heartbeat and From the Earth to the Moon sections.

The 7th edition of Rome’s MIA market will run October 13-17 with an expanded doc section set to address “all the new languages of the audiovisual sector that have to do with reality - its storytelling and interpretation.” Titled MIA UNSCRIPTED, confirmed events will include the international Doc Pitching Forum and Italians Doc It Better, which will showcase the best of local doc output.

The hybrid docfest announces the full programme for its 11th edition, running 8-14 September in London and 13-23 September online. World prems of Icarus (after Amelia) by Margaret Salmon and Inner Outer Space by Laida Lertxundi will open the festival while TEN SKIES by James Benning is selected as closing film.

Of the 16 films selected for the Doc Competition Programme of the 27th Sarajevo FF, 8 films are world prems, one is a European, six are regional and one is a Bosnian-Herzegovina premiere. “We have a lot of cinematic originality and freshness within the selection, new ideas, as well as new views of the world around us,” says Sarajevo’s Rada Šešić.

Swiss sales agency Lightdox has acquired worldwide rights to Claire Doyon’s feature documentary Pénélope, My Love, winner of Georges de Beauregard National Prize and Renaud Victor Prize at FID Marseille 2021, where it had its World Premiere earlier this month.

In Yellow Saturday (or Les rendez-vous de samedi) there is somewhat of the ‘when gilets jaunes met Jules et Jim,’ as the recent French yellow jacket protests are graphically chronicled alongside the fictional story of Pierre Bolex and his endeavours to date Paris’ most beautiful women.

Grand Prix of the International Competition to Japanese filmmaker Kyoshi Sugita for Haruhara San’s Recorder. The Georges de Beauregard International prize awarded to Declan Clarke (Ireland) for his Saturn and Beyond. The Grand Prix of the French Competition went to Jacques Meilleurat for Appuyé au mur (Lean on the Wall).

Set in a run-of-the-mill hotel and framed within a series of static shots, we hear the fascinating and provocative musings/reflections of avant-garde sound collagist Terre Thaemlitz (better known as DJ Sprinkles) on the subjects of patriarchy, identity, eschewing online engagement and modern-day paucity of language. Director Serge Garcia explains more to BDE.

The BBC tops the shortlist with 47 entries overall. Netflix has 21 films in the running; ITV has eight; Sky, nine and Channel 4 has 10 in the mix. Apple TV+ has six listed films. This year there are also two new award categories – Best Music and Best Sport Documentary.

Janis Rafa’s visually stunning, borderline grand guignol short film Lacerate, set in a neglected aristocratic house that contains both a dead body and a pack of feral dogs, was made in response to a commission from the Italian Fondazione In Between Art Film for its project ‘Mascarilla 19 – Codes of Domestic Violence.’