Geoffrey Macnab

Buyers are beginning to pick up the aroma of 'Growth', Russian sales outfit Antipode Sales and Distribution’s hot new Iranian feature doc, which tells the story of one of the world’s most popular drinks…coffee.

Femke Wolting has revealed further details of her galactic plans. Co-founder of Amsterdam/LA-based film and transmedia outfit Submarine, she is one of the producers on Richard Linklater’s new project 'Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure', described as a hybrid of live action in a fully animated world.

No, the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) won’t be holding their usual soirée during IDFA at which it plies festival guests with wee drams of whisky. Covid restrictions have meant that SDI representatives, like other international industry delegates, can’t be in Amsterdam in person.

Music doc Phil Lynott: Songs For While I'm Away premiered in the UK recently to considerable acclaim at Alexandra Palace as part of the Doc N Roll music documentary festival. However, the film’s theatrical life in the UK has been hampered by the COVID lockdown.

“In established power structures, there are many people who abuse their power willingly and for their own benefit, and also at least as many people who know about it and silently tolerate it.” Alison Kuhn talks to BDE about The Case You, her documentary response to a horrific experience.

Mandy Chang, Commissioning Editor BBC Storyville, has been steeped in Forum projects this week, listening to pitches, holding one-on-one meetings and watching rough cuts. It’s all part of her ongoing quest to discover new doc gems that Storyville might board.

Adventurous new Swiss doc sales outfit Lightdox has added a new football hooligan title to a slate that already includes 5 IDFA titles and one in Docs for Sale. IDFA titles include Arica, which world prems in Frontlight, and Lina Soualem’s Their Algeria (in Best of Fests).

When lockdown began, industry misgivings were shared at newsreel archive British Pathé, which holds huge amounts of film material from 1896, the very start of cinema, to the early 1980s. Would anyone pay to license this material during such a difficult period? The answer was a resounding ‘yes’.

“As you know, Danish documentary makers tend to travel out into the world. They were challenged by the whole situation,” Cecilia Lidin, doc consultant at the Danish Film Institute, observes of how the local doc community reacted earlier this year when, thanks to the Corona lockdown, their wings were suddenly clipped.

Matti Paunio started his job as Head of Production at The Finnish Film Foundation in the autumn of last year. Then, the pandemic came. “As with everybody, this was a total surprise and changed a lot of things we had planned,” Paunio says of the sudden challenges posed by Covid-19.