Nick Cunningham

Visions du Réel announced Feb 13 that American filmmaker John Wilson will be Special Guest for the festival’s 55th edition running 12-21 April. Wilson is largely recognised for his 2022 Primetime Emmy Award-nominated documentary series 'How To with John Wilson'. To accompany a selection of episodes from his series and earlier works, Wilson will take part in a public discussion, as well as curate a carte blanche.

Christensen has over two decades of experience in the documentary industry, working for the last 10 years for Copenhagen based production company Final Cut for Real. “I am deeply honoured to return to my roots and contribute to a community I hold dear. As the industry continues to evolve, it is essential to uphold Nordisk Panorama's esteemed legacy, ensuring its relevance while fostering innovation and adapting to the ever-changing landscape,” she says.

The Copenhagen docfest also unveiled the first batch of confirmed decision makers and the new awards at CPH:INDUSTRY. The event will take place in Copenhagen from Monday to Thursday, March 18-21, 2024, with CPH:WIP and CHANGE presentations taking place on Monday March 18. The CPH:DOX festival runs March 13-24.

The UK opening follows the film’s June 2023 Tribeca premiere and a preview Q&A tour which saw director Jeanie Finlay and subject Aubrey Gordon travel across the UK and Ireland to sold out screenings. Made over six years, the film charts the rise of writer and activist Aubrey Gordon from anonymous blogger to NYTimes best-selling author and podcaster. Her aim has been “to facilitate a paradigm shift in the way we see fat people and the fat on our own bodies.”

The 26th Thessaloniki International Doc Fest will showcase the internationally acclaimed artist, director, choreographer, visual artist and performer, and illustrate the “multifarious aspects of [this] artist through different forms of art and expression, redefining the boundaries of representation, the allegorical power of images and the communication between a work of art and the audience.” TIDF runs 7-17 March 2024.

Sunny Side of the Doc announced Feb 7 the project Replica as winner of the Global Pitch Award for Global Change. The pitch event took place online 6-7 February. Replica is directed by Chouwa Liang and produced by Axel Rise Films (Australia) and The Why Foundation (Denmark). The fourth edition of the event focused on doc projects dealing with issues linked to the sustainable development objectives as defined by the United Nations.

Berlinale published February 6 the entire programme of the 2024 festival running 15-25 February. Documentaries are selected across most festival sections, including two in Berlinale Competition (Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky and Dahomey by Mati Diop) and dozens more across the Encounters, Forum, Panorama, Generation, Berlinale Special, Retrospective and Short programmes.

This year's Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary at the 47th Göteborg Film Festival was awarded February 3 to the Norwegian Ibelin by Benjamin Ree. The prize is valued at SEK 250,000 (€21,950) in services. Honorary mentions were given to Marius Dybwad Brandrud/Petra Bauer for Fifteen zero three nineteenth of january two thousand sixteen (Sweden), and to Anssi Kömi/Suvi West for Homecoming (Finland).

The 3-day programme Geneva-based event includes a pitch session during which 16 film teams explain their impact goals/strategies. Doc Society’s Sandra Whipham will make the Impact keynote; selected NGOs and international organisations will explain how they work with films and audiovisual content across all formats and platforms, and the impact campaigns for two urgent docs will be placed squarely in the frame. And much more besides. Industry accreditations now open.

DocsBarcelona will pay tribute to French filmmaking couple Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret during its upcoming edition, running May 2 to 12. The Honorary DocsBarcelona Award “highlights their honest and authentic approach to people and landscapes from a seemingly shy and distant perspective that, at the same time, can turn into art the tension between photography and the temporal dimension of cinema.”