Nick Cunningham

The leading Greek docfest is inviting submissions for its next edition, running 6-16 March 2025. TiDF is an Oscars® documentary feature qualifying festival with four competition sections: Feature Length International Competition, Newcomers International Competition – Dimitri Eipides, >>Film Forward International Competition and Immersive: All Around Cinema International Competition.

The nominations recognize “remarkable programmes, extraordinary performances and impactful storytelling across multiple platforms.” The 76th Emmy Awards will take place September 15 from 20.00 at LA’s Peacock theatre. “Television delivers stories that connect us, uplift us, challenge us, and always entertain us. Today, I am honoured to celebrate the outstanding work of our extraordinarily talented and hardworking creative community,” commented Television Academy Chair Chris Aberg.

Arrate Fernandez will continue as IDFA’s Deputy Artistic Director, overseeing strategic Filmmaker Support activities. Additionally, she will dedicate part of her time to other endeavours outside the organization. “Isabel’s vision, dedication, and personal approach have positioned IBF as an organically decolonial beacon within the documentary filmmaking community,” comments IDFA Artistic Director Orwa Nyrabia. The search is on to find a new Executive Director to start in January 2025.

The European Film Academy has voiced again its demand for the release of filmmaker/activist Andrei Gnyot, who is currently imprisoned in Serbia and in immediate danger of being extradited to Belarus. “It is our firm belief that the charges against him are fabricated and politically motivated, and were introduced by the Belarusian authorities in retaliation for his activist activities,” says EFA Chair Mike Downey.

The prolific Northern Irish docmaker profiles Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a woman whose brain underwent profound recalibration after she climbed the Grindelwald Glacier in Switzerland in 1949. There she encountered the mathematical "certainty” which would inspire and inform her later paintings. “When I first saw her pictures in the late 80s, I was drawn to them, as if by a tractor beam,” director Cousins tells BDE.

The lab is open to LGBTQIA+ directors who are currently developing a queer documentary project. The 10 selected directors will have the opportunity to explore and play with the format of documentary through curated masterclasses and workshops with international and UK filmmakers, artists and other industry experts. Submission deadline: 16.00 BST, 9 August.

Organisers call the awards “the world's most prestigious event [December award date still TBA] dedicated to the documentary genre, celebrating the best non-fiction films, TV work, and audio documentaries of the year and seeking to represent excellence in the doc field by emerging and established documentarians worldwide." The call for entries is open until August 5 2024.

Mark Cousins’ study of Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004), narrated by Tilda Swinton, is also the second UK film to win Karlovy Vary’s top prize, after Ken Loach’s Kes (1970). The Crystal Globe is valued at $25,000 US. Sales on A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things are handled by Reservoir Docs.

The three-part series, for which Fremantle has worldwide distribution rights will take “an unfiltered and personal look at the astounding transformation of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky from comedian to iconic war hero.” The BBC will air the three-part series in full this autumn, with a shorter 70-minute film on France Télévisions as part of their documentary strand Le Monde En Face.

Irish multi-hyphenate Nick Kelly (director, screenwriter, pop star, activist, not to mention long distance cyclist) talks to Business Doc Europe about how he cycled from Ireland to Glastonbury carrying his tent and his guitar, to prove that the business of making art doesn’t have to kill the planet. Kelly’s saddle-bound feature doc world premieres July 12 at Galway Film Fleadh.