Nick Cunningham

The festival’s 13th edition runs March 13–17 and features a raft of international prize-winning docs and hybrids. The NY festival concludes with Bill and Turner Ross’s Gasoline Rainbow before the film hotfoots it to CPH:DOX where it is selected for the new section Parafictions. MOMI will also present the US premiere of Fiona Tan’s Footsteps, with a reception for the Dutch artist scheduled for March 15.

In looking to dub The Lion King into Quechua, the language of the Incas, not only is Fernando, a Peruvian voice actor enriching the life of his 8-year old son Dylan, he is also trying to save his indigenous tongue from extinction. “What we aim to do through our film, a joyful story of a very proud indigenous man, is to transform Quechua from a language of the oppressed into a language of power,” said producer Paloma Iturriaga.

The StoryBoard Impact Award (10,000 CHF) was won by the Peruvian project Hakuchu Munayta by Augusto Zegarra while the Sublimages Impact Award was handed to the Brazilian Brotherhood of Weeping Men by Helena de Castro. An additional 10,000 CHF award was given by StoryBoard, in association with the South Africa-based Sunshine Cinema, to the Kenyan film The Battle for Laikipia.

Doc Society’s Sandra Whipham provided a sobering account March 11 of the current streamer-led documentary landscape, but offered a large measure of hope in urging independent makers to wrestle back financial, executive and creative control. “We need to imagine a new global pool fund where resources are shared equitably to every region, where local experts can make decisions about what and where to spend. Funding this work at scale [and] funding the distribution and impact strategies that we know are effective is the answer to the nightmare of AI-generated content, creative conformity and political retreat we find ourselves in.”

Kenyan producer Samuel Ekomol was awarded a CHF 10,000 (€10,425) StoryBoard Collective grant 11 March at FIFDH to help fund local community screenings of Tribeca 2023 winner Between the Rains, directed by Moses Thuranira Thiane and Andrew H Brown. Filmed during a prolonged period of drought, the film tells the story of a conflicted young shepherd who questions his own identity as a warrior while observing the erosion of the culture that has thus far shaped every aspect of his life.

In Malta, abortion is illegal, almost without exception. In Italy, a single woman cannot have IVF treatment, while only a small number of European countries allow for euthanasia or assisted suicide. So it is not surprising that Europe has seen a boom in cross-border “medical tourism” over recent years, a phenomenon that Greek director Elina Psykou examines in her feature doc Stray Bodies which world-premieres in Thessaloniki before its international premiere at CPH:DOX. Psykou talks to BDE.

Impact Accelerator marks the start of a new collaboration between the Swiss promotion agency and the Geneva-based philanthropic organisation. The call for applications is aimed at Swiss producers planning an international impact campaign. Through the new partnership, 3 projects will be supported from 2024 through 2025. Deadline for application: April 30.

Nominations for the 8 board positions can be submitted now with voting open 13-31 May. Results will be announced June 3. “Given the challenges facing the sector, there could not be a more important time to stand up for documentary, and having an elected board ensures the DFC is led by its members and is accountable to the community it represents,” the Documentary Film Council writes.

"I wish to be able to exchange this [award] for Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities," 20 Days in Mariupol director Mstyslav Chernov said during his emotional acceptance speech. Ben Proudfoot picks up second Short Doc Oscar in three years for The Last Repair Shop, co-directed with Kris Bowers.

The film won the Documentary Award, offered by BGL BNP PARIBAS and endowed with a €5,000 cash prize. The 2030 Award by Luxembourg Aid & Development (cash prize of €7,500), was awarded to Tatiana Huezo’s The Echo. The 14th edition of LuxFilmFest, which ran 29 February - 10 March, attracted almost 20,000 visitors, a 10% increase on 2023.