Nick Cunningham

50 films make up the competition sections (International, French, First Film, Flash and Cine+) of the 35th edition of FIDMarseille. Of these, 42 are World Premieres, 5 are International Premieres and 3 are French Premieres. The festival opens June 25 with Grand Tour by Miguel Gomes and closes June 30 with Alain Guiraudie’s Miséricorde.

The winners of the Doc Alliance Awards 2024 were announced June 6 at the award ceremony of Docudays UA in Kyiv. The prize for the Best Feature Film, endowed with 5,000 euros, went to The Landscape and the Fury by Nicole Vögele. Crushed by Camille Vigny received the Doc Alliance Award for Best Short Film, endowed with 3,000 EUR. Both awarded films were the nominations of Visions du Réel.

The feature doc, directed by Jayson McNamara and Andrea Tortonese, concerns the life of the esteemed Argentinian activist and feminist icon Norita Cortiñas. Fonda joins fellow executive producers, Oscar® winner Gustavo Santaolalla and author/activist Naomi Klein. “It is an honour to have Jane’s support and backing,” says director Jayson McNamara. “As a respected artist across generations, she is the ideal person to be bringing light to the story of an activist such as Norita.”

Ukrainian Anna Kurkurina is many things, a queer world champion powerlifter, a social media influencer with 350,000 followers and a protector of thousands of animals which are also the victims of the war in Ukraine. Her kindness also extends to fellow Ukrainians such as filmmakers Tetiana Dorodnitsyna and Andrii Lytvynenko ever since they met in 2019. “Every time we came to ‘Mama’s home’ she would feed us, she would take care of us,” Dorodnitsyna remembers. “From those five years grew up a friendship.”

Documentary Competition presents a dozen US and international doc features while the Docs In Spotlight section presents a further 26 non-fiction features. “Storytelling possesses a remarkable ability to bring us together, offering hope in these challenging times. We eagerly anticipate engaging with audiences on difficult yet timely subjects,” says co-founder and CEO Jane Rosenthal. The New York celebration of film runs to June 16.

Eight filmmakers and executives will form the first board of trustees of the Documentary Film Council (DFC), the new national membership organisation designed to represent the interests of the sector in the UK. The trustees were elected on a 58.2% turnout, and will formally take over from the interim board at Sheffield DocFest at the DFC’s annual Open Assembly and AGM on Saturday June 15.

The Golden Horn for Best Film was given to Askold Kurov and Anonymous 1 for Of Caravan and the Dogs (Germany). The Silver Horn for Highest Artistic Merit went to Tomasz Wolski for A Year in the Life of the Country (Poland). The Silver Horn for Best Film on Social Issues was won by Oksana Karpovych for Intercepted (Canada, France, Ukraine). The KFF Recommendation to the European Film Award (Doc) is Silent Trees by Agnieszka Zwiefka (Poland).

The Industry awards of Krakow 2024 were handed out May 31 within the Docs to Start and Docs to Go categories, for Polish and Ukrainian documentary projects in development and in post-production respectively. KFF Industry runs May 27 to June 1. The 64th Krakow Film Festival runs to 2 June in Kraków, and across Poland on the KFF VOD online streaming platform between 31 May and 16 June 2024.

This week Krakow Film Festival Industry 2024 hosted a presentation of 10 new Polish & Ukrainian documentary projects at the post-production stage, preceded by the Doc Lab Poland: Doc Lab Go workshop. The purpose of the presentation was to source potential distributor, sales agent and buyer interest as well secure a festival premiere and other core slots in the doc calendar.

The deadline for films for the 7th Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival has been extended to midnight of June 3 2024, while project submissions for Industry Days (three categories: Main Pitch, Rough Cut, Balkan Stars) can be made up to and including June 15. AJB DOC Film Festival will take place in Sarajevo 13 to 17 September 2024. Industry Days runs September 14-16.