Nick Cunningham

Italian Massimo d’Anolfi and Martina Parenti’s Bestiari Erbari Lapideri, which world-premieres Sept 3, is a film divided into three acts and which deals with three distinct and fundamental subjects: animals, plants and stones. “It is first and foremost a reflection on the relationship between humans and nature that exists beyond our impact on it,” the filmmakers say of their latest opus. “We build real and imaginary cages to contain it, but nature always evades our attempt to tame it.”

One hot weekend in 1965 in the US saw three contrasting cultural phenomena. The Beatles arrived to play their iconic Shea Stadium gig, the Watts Riots kicked off in LA and the World Fair was in full swing in Queens, New York. Romanian Andrei Ujică documents this weekend in his rich new documentary, at the same time inserting a fictional romance between two real-life chroniclers of the time. “Small lives are set against the huge backdrop of what's happening in the world,” Ujică, himself an avid Beatles fan, tells Business Doc Europe.

The event will include 29 new projects in Main Pitch, Rough Cut, Balkan Stars and Special Selection sections. “This edition will emphasize documentaries that tell human stories, address pressing social issues, and promote universal values, with a focus on the regions under-represented in the documentary filmmaking industry,” say organisers of the event which takes place September 14-16 during the Al Jazeera Balkans Doc FF in Sarajevo.

The film has picked up a number of high-profile wins including the Panorama Audience Award and Documentary Award at Berlinale 2024, as well as the Tim Hetherington Award at the 2024 Sheffield Documentary Festival. It was recently selected as one of 12 feature documentaries for the upcoming European Film Awards (EFAs) and will soon play at the 2024 Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals.

Directed by award-winning Serbian Mladen Kovačević and produced together with Iva Plemić Divjak, the film will have its world premiere at Giornate Degli Autori on September 3. In the film, drawn to a paradise island in the quest for happiness, the protagonists grapple with the endless tensions between life's possibilities, but the question remains if they are living the life they should be living.

Academy Award nominee Petra Costa’s new film investigates the toxic link between evangelical Christianity and political governance within her home country of Brazil, most notably during the regime of Jair Bolsonaro. The doc presents the former-president as almost puppet-like in his devotion to the firebrand tele-evangelist Silas Malafaia. “We knew they had an intimate political relationship, but as we watched the material, it became so evident the kind of subservience and reverence that Bolsonaro had for Malafaia,” says Costa, who is joined in interview by producer Alessandra Orofino.

The 32nd edition will take place from 18 - 23 June 2025 with ‘lightning’ discount Industry Pass rates now available through to October 16. Additionally, the festival is looking to appoint a new Chair of Trustees to take over from Alex Cooke who will be stepping down later this year, after supporting the festival through 5 editions. The deadline for applications is September 6.

The 5-member international jury who will select the Best Film in AJB DOC Competition comprises Deborah London-Harrington, documentary filmmaker and Head of Production Management at Dogwoof; Namik Kabil, film director and writer; Mila Turajlić, documentary filmmaker; Francesco Montagner, documentary filmmaker, and Myriam Francois, journalist and documentary filmmaker. The 7th AJB DOC FF will take place in Sarajevo from September 13-17.

The 28th edition of Baltic Sea Docs doc pitching forum is set to take place in Riga, 1-8 September. This year, the forum will feature the presentation of 26 film projects, alongside screenings for local audiences in Riga and various regional towns across Latvia. Baltic Sea Docs is dedicated to showcasing feature-length creative documentary projects that originate from or focus on the wider Baltic Sea region, Eastern Europe and Caucasus.

At the close of the 30th Sarajevo FF (August 16- 23) the Best Film Award in Documentary Competition went to A Picture To Remember (Ukraine, France, Germany) by Olga Chernykh, while the Human Rights Award was picked up by Your life Without Me (Hungary/Switzerland) by Anna Rubi. The Special Jury Award was won by What We Ask of a Statue Is That It Doesn’t Move (Greece/France) by Daphné Hérétakis. All documentary awards…