Nick Cunningham

At the beginning of the pandemic Michele Aiello was granted permission to take his camera into the general hospital of Brescia, Northern Italy, close to Europe’s then-Covid epicentre. His subsequent doc My Place Is Here chronicles the terror, the love, the bitter sadness and the bravery that he witnessed. He talks to BDE.

The IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF) awards €30,000 in distribution support to The Earth Is Blue as an Orange, the award-winning film from Ukrainian director Iryna Tsilyk. The grant will boost the film’s upcoming release in Ukraine, Lithuania, and the Western Balkans.

The DOK.edit Award honours outstanding editing achievements with prize money of 5,000 euros. It is part of the new programme focus Re:arranging Reality which revolves around the post-production of documentary films. DOK.fest München runs 5-23 May 2021.

The Visions du Réel Industry programme commences April 14, with its usual panoply of pitching and networking events/opportunities and debates, presented both online and live. Head of Industry Madeline Robert guides BDE through the programme.

Visions du Réel director Emilie Bujès opens up to Business Doc Europe about the 2021 edition that welcomes back filmmakers, industry and specific audiences to Nyon. “Ideologically for us, this is a very important gesture,” she underlines of the festival’s first tentative steps towards normality.

The Movies That Matter human rights film festival runs online 16-25 April with new documentary and fiction competitions and, for the first time, an international Industry programme that will run 19-21 April. Festival director Margje de Koning points out what really matters to Business Doc Europe.

International sales/aggregation outfit LevelK has acquired world sales rights for the Brazilian documentary feature From Love No One Escapes, which depicts the lives of inmates inside a Brazilian jail where there are no guns or guards. The film screens at Visions du Réel market running 14-22 April.

Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed win the coveted Best Documentary Bafta for their Netflix Original story of an unusual friendship between a filmmaker and an octopus living in a South African kelp forest.

German film Mr Bachmann and His Class (Maria Speth) is awarded Best Documentary while the Jury Prize in Doc Competition goes to Swedish Sundance winner Sabaya, directed by Hogir Hirori.

Organisers put out call for creative feature-length documentary projects and docuseries from Central and Eastern Europe in development or early production, and which ‘challenge genres, format and media boundaries.’