Davide Abbatescianni

This year, Berlin-based sales agency Magnet Film brings seven new documentaries to IDFA’s Docs for Sale. Business Doc Europe talked to the German firm’s CEO, Georg Gruber, to find out more about the company’s rich non-fiction slate. “We are always looking for films with strong narratives, compelling subjects and characters, and with a clear appeal to a worldwide audience,” he says.

With a large Italian contingent of docmakers and professionals taking part at IDFA 2022, BDE sat down with two reps of DocIt, Italy’s national association of documentarians, to discuss how the country’s doc scene is developing, their agenda for the fest and the Italian titles and projects set to be showcased or screened this year. DocIt president Francesco Virga, and Lucia Pornaro, in charge of DocIt’s internationalisation processes, filled us in.

On 29 October, Ji.hlava IDFF hosted a panel during which European festival directors discussed the boycott of Russian cinematography and other ethical dilemmas. Panelists included Cintia Gil (co-curator of Unidocs’ Artistic Differences), Veton Nurkollari (artistic director of Kosovo’s DokuFest), Viktoria Leshchenko (programme director of Docudays UA) and Marek Hovorka (director of Ji.hlava IDFF).

On 28 October, the Ex Oriente Film workshop, organized by the Institute of Documentary Film at Ji.hlava IDFF, hosted a masterclass by award-winning Czech director, script editor and FAMU lecturer Lucie Kralová. During her talk, the helmer focused on her latest documentary feature, titled ‘Kapr Code’ and revolving around the progressive Prague-born composer and prominent communist activist Jan Kapr (1914–1988).

On 14 October, the Rome-based MIA market shone the spotlight on one of the most successful non-fiction hits of the year, the Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler. The one-hour discussion, moderated by Joel Zimmer, President of AGC Unwritten at AGC Studios, saw the participation of director Felicity Morris.

On 11 October, Rome’s Cinema Barberini hosted a panel titled ‘Archives, Market and Free Access: Value, Cost and Social Use of Audiovisual Heritage,’ moderated by Marco Spagnoli, MIA’s Deputy Director and Head of Doc & Factual. Leading players from Italian outfits Doc/It, Istituto Luce, Fandango and Anica, as well as international trade body Focal International, took the floor.

At MIA 2022, the directing duo Samuel León and Saúl Valverde pitched Diary of an Infiltrator, a 4x45’ docuseries project set to be filmed between Chile, Rome, Berlin and Buenos Aires. The series revolves around the “incredible, untold story” of anarchist filmmaker Miguel Herberg who infiltrated Pinochet’s Chilean military regime from 1972 to 1974, exposing its murderous iniquities.

Directed and edited by Ilaria de Laurentiis, The Rossellini Method promises to be “an archive film portrait of the legendary Italian director: revolutionary, irreverent, contradictory, candid in life and art.” De Laurentiis edited the feature doc The Rossellinis, which was pitched at MIA 2019 and selected for Venice the following year. Producer Raffaele Brunetti talks to Business Doc Europe about his latest Rossellini doc.

What is the moral cost of the War on Terror? Is it legitimate to violate the law in the name of national security? These are the two main questions tackled in the new doc feature, fully titled Ghost Detainee – The Extraordinary Rendition of Abu Omar and pitched at this year’s MIA market. “It is a spy film but also a reflection on what limits our governments can push to defend their own democratic principles,” the Italian doccers tell BDE.

Award winning director, DoP and TV author Edoardo Anselmi and producer Carlo Ghiani last week pitched their new non-fiction project at Rome’s MIA, a TV one-off titled Banksy and The Sad Girl (La ragazza triste di Banksy). The film follows the rescue of the titular contemporary icon and promises to explore the impact of street art today.