Nick Cunningham

Mike Downey, the London/Dublin-based film producer who is the current Chairman of the Board of the European Film Academy (EFA) has been honoured in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, officially published today in the London Gazette.

“Finally back in theatres,” is the joyful cry of Fipadoc director Christine Camdessus as she prepares for this Saturday’s very live presentation of her Biarritz-based docfest, the public part of which was postponed from January 2021. She enthuses even more with Business Doc Europe.

After a full programme presented in selected Leipzig cinemas 25-31 October, DOK Stream will offer a selection of festival films accessible online by the German public during the first two weeks of November. Film professionals to meet again in Leipzig during DOK Industry, with online participation still an option.

The ICFR and its founding institutions, the European Film Academy, IDFA and IFFR, together with 22 other leading global festivals and film institutions, have called on Myanmar authorities “to immediately and unconditionally release filmmaker Ma Aeint.”

The European public and the members of the European Parliament have voted Collective by Alexander Nanau the winner of the first LUX Audience Award. The prize, said Nanau, was for the victims of the nightclub fire in Bucharest in 2015, and for their families, and underlined how “we want to fight corruption and we want a free press.”

Director Alex Infascelli won the €5,000 audience prize June 9 for his biopic of the Roma football icon. “This is unbelievable!! Out of all the awards possible, this is the most important: the crowd. I am grateful to everyone who has opened their hearts to our film!” said the director.

Swipe Films announced June 9 that it has concluded “significant sales” on the feature length documentary Sparkling: The Story of Champagne, including North America acquisition by Gravitas Ventures and ITV/BBC joint venture Britbox for UK (excluding theatrical rights), and others.

We may all want to forget the past year, but Songs For The River (with its strapline of ‘Reflections on a Pandemic’) serves as an important and unique, and at times hopeful, record of these dark times.

To coincide with the June 8 ‘UK Commissioners: Looking Ahead’ session at Sheffield DocFest, Clare Sillery, BBC Head of Commissioning, Documentaries, History and Religion announced four new series and a 1x60’ film “that bring audiences new stories and perspectives from across the UK and showcase exciting new and diverse talent on and off screen.”

The BFI Doc Society Fund has partnered with FWD-Doc: Filmmakers with Disabilities to create an industry resource aimed at ensuring disabled-accessible and disabled-inclusive doc filmmaking and exhibition. Engagement Pack launches with ‘Reimagining Disability in Documentary’ talk at Sheffield 8 June (7pm today).