Geoffrey Macnab

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald has a phrase for his brand of documentary: “humanitarian cinema.” In his three most recent films, 50 Feet From Syria (2015), Lifeboat (2018) and now Hunger Ward (2020), Fitzgerald has chronicled both the depths of human suffering and the heroic attempts to alleviate it.

British director Toby Paton (pictured) discusses his C4 doc Max Clifford: The Fall Of A Tabloid King, about the publicist to the stars who died in prison in 2017 after his conviction as a sex offender.

Joe Berlinger goes back to basics with Business Doc Europe to discuss the ongoing influence of Truman Capote, and especially his revered, if perhaps flawed, non-fiction novel ‘In Cold Blood’, published in 1966 and which chronicled the murder of a family in Kansas by a pair of drifters.

Anais Clanet’s Reservoir Docs has added a new title to its slate. The French sales outfit is set to handle world rights on Swedish director Manal Masri’s new jazz-themed feature doc and series Legacy.

A new documentary by BAFTA-winning director Stuart Urban shines the spotlight on a shocking missing person case that has intrigued the British public for the past 35 years. The director explains his reasons for making the film to Business Doc Europe.

Docs are at the beating heart of this year’s BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival (17-28 March). This is the UK’s longest running queer film event. It began life as Gay’s Own Pictures in 1986, later rebranded as the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and then, in 2014, changed its name to BFI Flare. Programmer Brian Robinson talks to BDE

Nadezda Motina’s Capella Film, one of Russia’s most prolific and adventurous independent distribution outfits, is getting the documentary bug. with the acquisition of Russian rights to Rodney Ascher’s mind-bending Sundance doc A Glitch In The Matrix, sold by Magnolia.

In recent years, lines between documentary and dramatic features have become increasingly blurred. One new feature which straddles the two forms in bravura fashion is Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios’ A Cop Movie (which world-premiered in Berlin competition). BDE interrogates the director.

Esther van Messel’s Zurich-based sales and distribution powerhouse First Hand Films has added several new titles to its early 2021 slate, among them Danish docmaker Louise Detlefsen latest film 'It’s Not Over Yet!'

The Last Forest, Luiz Bolognesi’s remarkable new film, is set in an isolated Yanomami community deep in the Amazon forest in Brazil. Its subjects may go about their daily lives, but they are in danger as never before, so much so that police and soldiers no longer intervene to protect them. The director explains to BDE.