Geoffrey Macnab

It was a disaster which shocked football fans everywhere and led to rigorous new safety measures within football stadiums. Now, the Heysel tragedy is to be revisited in Heysel, Bloc Z, an epic new six part docu-series announced in Cannes this week. The first episodes should be ready for broadcast late 2022, just before the World Cup in Qatar.

The Chilean doc scene is blossoming in the wake of Maite Alberdi’s Oscar nomination for The Mole Agent. That is the message from Constanza Arena, the director of promotional agency, CinemaChile. In spite of the travel restrictions placed on Latin Americans because of the pandemic, Arena has made it to the Cannes market. Six Chilean producers are also in town.

Young Afghan multi-media journalist and documentary maker Mortaza Behboudi has been in Cannes to present his new film Moria, Beyond Hell, about the enormous refugee camp on the island of Lesbos. Behboudi spoke to BDE ahead of its broadcast on Arte.

Veteran London-based producer David P Kelly has credits ranging from Aki Kaurismäki’s I Hired A Contract Killer to Vera Glagoleva’s Two Women, which starred Ralph Fiennes. Now, he has returned to documentary with his new feature doc, The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas, sold by Visit Films and which world-premieres in Cannes Classics this weekend.

“I think that Cannes is a perfect setting for this film – isn’t it the purpose of the festival to give a platform for cinema which challenges artistic and intellectual stereotypes? To give a voice to the directors, who are searching for the new ways of expression,” director Sergei Loznitsa suggests to BDE ahead of the world-premiere of his shocking new documentary.

“Schindler got everything, but women also deserve to get at least something, some recognition,” Russian producer/sales agent Raisa Fomina says of her new documentary 'Bitter Taste Of Love or Frau Schindler’s List' - and of a perceived injustice it is seeking to right. Fomina explains more to Business Doc Europe.

It’s a blazing hot Cannes afternoon. Mark Cousins is on an apartment terrace in a building off the Croisette, wearing his kilt. It’s a few hours after the premiere of his latest documentary, The Story of Film: A New Generation, screening in the Cannes Classics section (and sold by Dogwoof), and he’s all set to talk with Business Doc Europe.

Spanish director Miguel Eek’s feature doc The First Woman (screening this week at Docaviv) was a project which took extreme resilience and sensitivity to complete. Its protagonist Eva is a schizophrenic who has been in a psychiatric hospital in Mallorca for several years and about to leave and move into an assisted living residence. The director talks to BDE.

Cannes will mark the first event in over a year at which Salma Abdalla, CEO of doc sales outfit Autlook, will come face to face with theatrical distributors, with titles that include Loving Highsmith, just acquired, and the sports doc Running For The Revolution, about legendary Cuban runner Alberto Juantorena. Abdalla gets on her marks with Business Doc Europe.

Philippa Kowarsky’s sales outfit Cinephil will hit the Cannes market this week with several new docs on its slate, among them the multi-director A Jewish Life, described as a companion piece to the company’s award-winning A German Life (2016), and Adi Arbel’s Grossman, a TV doc about the revered Israeli writer David Grossman.