Davide Abbatescianni

The upcoming edition of Rome’s MIA (6–10 October) is set to reinforce its role as a key meeting point for the non-fiction industry. Speaking to Business Doc Europe, MIA’s Head of Doc & Factual and Deputy Director, Marco Spagnoli, and Head of the Doc Co-Production Market, Ben Pace, outlined an event focused on coproduction and internationalisation, fostering connections that bring documentary and factual stories to global audiences.

On Wednesday, May 21, a sunlit stretch of the Plage du CNC transformed into a hub for cinematic memory and innovation. During this year’s Cannes Film Festival, an extraordinary presentation unveiled a ground-breaking educational initiative: a platform giving film students open access to 54 hours of rushes from Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse, 2000), offering them the rare opportunity to edit this material in alignment with their own directorial visions.

On 20 May, in front of a live audience gathered on the Main Stage of Cannes, filmmaker Viv Li described her experiences as a first-time documentary director. “I’m honoured to represent the voices of first-time filmmakers at Cannes,” she said, before launching into a keynote that felt less like a formal talk and more like an audacious one-woman performance — in equal parts confession, stand-up and manifesto.

In an industry saturated with submissions and shifting audience behaviours, selecting documentaries for 'non-doc specific' film festivals remains an intricate craft — a fact that emerged during the May 20 'Real Talk panel organised for this year’s Cannes Docs. The conversation featured insights from Pamela Biénzobas (Locarno Film Festival), Paul Grandsard (Festival de Cannes), Michael Stütz (Berlinale), and Ania Trzebiatowska (Sundance Film Festival), under the moderation of Eric Hynes, Director of Film Curation and Programming at the Jacob Burns.

On March 25, Wolf Moon, a captivating project by Robin Petré, was unveiled at the CPH:DOX Forum. Moderated by Tabitha Jackson, the presentation offered an exciting glimpse into a film that promises to take audiences on an immersive journey deep into the landscapes of the night, exploring the evolving relationship between humans and animals in the age of the Anthropocene.

The talk Collective Action, Collective Power, presented in partnership with Documentary Campus and held as part of this year’s CPH:DOX Conference on 25 March, brought together a distinguished group of panellists to discuss the potential of collective organising in reshaping the documentary ecosystem. “There’s an audience out there tired of being spoon-fed by algorithms. They want engaging, meaningful content—they just can’t find it,” said former Sundance Institute CEO Keri Putnam.

UK production outfit Hopscotch Films returned to CPH:DOX Forum with Story of Documentary Film, the latest epic by revered filmmaker Mark Cousins. Following on from their collaborations on The Story of Film: An Odyssey and Women Make Film, this new 16x60-minute series sets out to tell the definitive story of non-fiction cinema—"boldly feminist, jargon-free, and truly global in scope."

At this year’s CPH:DOX Forum, Norwegian auteur Margreth Olin (Songs of Earth, The Self Portrait, Doing Good) unveiled details of her latest non-fiction venture. Known for her lyrical storytelling and focus on human rights and environmental consciousness, Olin is now turning her lens toward a different kind of subject: the horse - not as a servant to human needs, but as a sentient, autonomous being.

At this year’s CPH:DOX Rough Cut session director Pieter-Jan De Pue unveiled a deeply personal and visually arresting project that has been nearly a decade in the making. Four Brothers [working title], a powerful 120-minute documentary, tells the story of four orphaned siblings growing up in war-ravaged Eastern Ukraine. “This story intrigued me from the moment I heard about families torn apart by war, and that of two brothers fighting on opposite sides of the conflict,” the helmer said.

A powerful environmental and family documentary set in the rugged highlands of Montenegro, The Last Nomads by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić was presented as part of the Rough Cut sessions held at CPH:DOX 2025, marking the final production push ahead of its eventual premiere. “We joined the local people in defending their land, life, and identity,” said co-director Glomazić. “This is the story I’ve dreamt of telling since my childhood.”