Nick Cunningham

Six new Swiss doc projects, ripe for selection at festivals during 2026, will be presented April 22 in Nyon to industry professionals from the international sales, distribution and finance sectors, as well as festival programmers from across the globe. Thirteen more will be presented within the Prix RTS and newly established Migros Culture Percentage Story Lab. What’s more, there’s a hatful of Swiss films across the festival’s competition and non-competitive sections. Swiss Films documentary topper Charlotte Ducos puts BDE in the picture.

Outgoing Artistic Director Emilie Bujès talks to Business Doc Europe about her ninth and final edition in charge of one of Europe’s leading festivals for non-fiction and hybrid cinema. Under her charge, the festival has emphasised “the cinematic experience first and foremost,” she tells BDE. “But at the same time, I truly believe in the power of creating bridges, spending one hour and a half with somebody looking at things the way they are looking at them, and understanding what they want to share beyond the aesthetic experience - a common life, a common present, a common moment, a common history.”

From April 27 to May 1, 23 participants from 13 countries across the Mediterranean and MENA region will gather in Ajaccio, Corsica for a five-day workshop led by Alexandre Cornu and Diana El Jeiroudi. “At a time when unjust and devastating wars continue to affect parts of the Arab world, we believe it is more essential than ever to support documentary projects and voices from the region, and to foster meaningful collaboration and co-production between Western Asia, Europe and the Mediterranean,” organisers write.

Sunny Side of the Doc 2026 announced April 15 first speakers for the re-established event, running 22–24 June 2026 in La Rochelle, France. “Financing is...

The Docs-in-Progress program partners with institutions from around the world to exhibit carefully selected works at final stages of production and which are looking to hit the circuit within the coming weeks or months. Each of the eight showcases features four projects, presented in the form of a live pitch and a 10-minute excerpt of the rough-cut, designed to catch the attention of decision-makers, festival programmers, and sales agents. Cannes Docs runs 14-19 May 2026.

The 16 films competing for this year’s Doc Alliance Awards were announced April 15. Each of the seven European documentary festivals that make up the Doc Alliance network, together with this year’s guest festival GAIFF, the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival, has put forward one short and one feature-length documentary from its previous programme. The Doc Alliance Award will be presented on 19 May in Cannes during the Doc Day Lunch at the Marché du Film.

Three feature documentaries and one doc hybrid are selected for the Cannes sidebar section dedicated to independent, ground-breaking cinema. “The films presented are all gestures that bring us together—stories rooted in a poetic reality that is joyful, unexpected, but above all free and unformatted. They thus emerge as powerful acts of resistance—and of hope,” the ACID programmers collectively write.

The 12 films that constitute this year’s Main Competition represent an “absolute highlight of what is happening currently in documentary cinema,” write organisers, and are eligible for nine awards across the festival’s host cities of Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdynia, Poznań, Katowice, Łódź and Bydgoszcz. The 23rd Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival runs 8 to 17 May 2026, and online from May 19 to June 1.

Among the 19 features and shorts selected for Cannes Directors Fortnight 2026 are five documentaries. These include Thanks for Coming, the final instalment of Alain Cavalier’s ongoing filmed diary. “We are delighted by the significant presence of documentaries (3 features and 2 shorts)…showcasing highly distinctive works that demonstrate the exceptional richness and vitality of [the form],” comments Artistic Director Julien Rejl.

Running May 7 to 17, the 29th Barcelona International Documentary Film Festival will open with Mehrdad Oskouei's story of resistance, A Fox Under a Pink Moon. John Wilson returns to DocsBarcelona with The History of Concrete, a humorous reflection on concrete and urban life, and the festival will tawad its Docs d'Honor prize to filmmaker Mark Cousins, who will present a retrospective of his work.