Nick Cunningham

Twenty docs are selected for Sundance’s World Cinema and US Documentary Competitions, while non-fiction features prominently in Next, Premieres and Episodic. “Curation is Sundance’s secret sauce and we’re energized by the range of films, stories and artists we’ve watched and selected from around the world,” comments Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming.

The prolific US director discusses his new documentary with Oscar-winning James Marsh (2008, Man On Fire). American Symphony explores a year in the life of musician Jon Batiste, chronicling his career in music (including his 11 nominations at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards) and the struggles that his wife, best-selling author Suleika Jaouad, faces with cancer. “To see these two amazing individuals navigate these highs and lows of life was incredible,” says Heineman.

Lea Glob’s portrait of artist Apolonia Sokol, shot over 13 years, is a chronicle not only of friendship, pain and (ultimately) success, but very much a record of recent seismic political, societal and cultural change. “When I say at the beginning of the film that she's walking in the footsteps of the great painters, she is very literally now painting in Picasso's old studio in Paris,” Glob tells BDE of Apolonia’s emergence as a renowned artist. “Now she opens the windows to tourists and says, ‘Picasso's not here, but I am.’”

Dogwoof announced Nov 29 that it will release The Disappearance of Shere Hite, directed by Oscar-nominated Nicole Newnham, in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on 12 January 2024. Narrated by Dakota Johnson, the film remembers the 1970s feminist sex researcher Shere Hite, whose groundbreaking study of the intimate experiences of women ( The Hite Report), remains one of the bestselling books of all time since its publication in 1976.

Eight new feature-length documentaries coming out of the dok.incubator 2023 programme will be pitched online November 28. “These films represent themes often missing in the public debate, show unique insights into stories and enlighten many important messages of the world we live in,” says Andrea Prenghyová, the dok.incubator CEO. The deadline for submissions for 2024 opens Nov 30 with a deadline of January 25.

Shot over 25 years, Reed Harkness’s multi award-winning documentary concerns his titular half-brother’s search for his missing mother, and the effect her disappearance had on his and her subsequent lives, as well as those of other family members. “I wanted to do a project about growth,” Harkness tells Business Doc Europe of a film that is both visually alluring and emotionally compelling. “And Sam just kind of fell into my lap as a subject.”

Luke Lorentzen won the Best Director prize at Sundance 2023 for his documentary A Still Small Voice, which follows Mati, a chaplain completing a year-long hospital residency as she learns to provide spiritual care to people confronting profound life changes. He speaks about his film with Alexander Nanau, director of Collective which, in 2021, was nominated in the Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature Film categories.

The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Industry hub, Agora, which next runs March 8-16 2024, has announced a partnership with IEFTA Foundation which will see the presentation of a new €10,000 award to a project participating in Thessaloniki Pitching Forum. Deadlines of 5 and 12 January respectively for submissions for Thessaloniki Pitching Forum and Agora Docs in Progress.

20 Days in Mariupol by Mstyslav Chernov was given the NPO IDFA Audience Award, the grand public prize of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. The €5,000 cash prize was awarded November 18 in the Royal Theater Tuschinski, followed by a special screening of the film. This year, 142 films competed for the Audience Award.

A fascinating delve into the life and work of Shere Hite and her contributions to the feminist movement, the intriguingly titled feature documentary is blessed with challenging and evocative archival material as it examines responses to her ground-breaking 1976 survey of thousands of women’s individual sexual experiences, while also detailing the modelling work she did to make ends meet while undertaking her research.