Nick Cunningham

In her debut feature doc shot over six years Eléonore Boissinot chronicles the lives of two Muslim sisters in Ahmedabad, a city within the Hindu-majority Indian state of Gujarat. What seems at first a domestic story of teenage frustration evolves into a political rites of passage as the girls come to understand their tragic past and how it was shaped, in 2002, by a sectarian massacre that claimed 69 lives, among them ten members of their own family. The director talks to BDE.

UK docs-in-progress Mother Vera by Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson, and No Ifs Or Buts by Sarah Lewis, were lauded August 6 by the First Look jury, while Pas Ta Maman by Michèle Flury and produced by Felix Schreiber of Sommerhaus Filmproduktion won the Alphapanda Market Breakout Award of Locarno’s Alliance 4 Development platform.

The themed programme will present authors who became famous with films about real events, as well as new authors who question the position of individuals whose lives have been marked by trauma from the recent past. “The aim of the program is to initiate dialogue in the countries formed from the disintegration of former Yugoslavia and to deal with problems arising as a result of the wars in the region,” write organisers.

Locarno’s First Look programme of works-in-progress puts the UK in the spotlight in 2023 and one of the six new titles in the frame is All At Sea, the semi-autobiographical documentary of the late Mike Hodges, the 1960s Granada TV docmaker who went on to make fiction features as diverse as the seminal Get Carter and Flash Gordon. The documentary is produced by Liverpool-based Hurricane Films.

Dutch co-producers Naomi Pacifique and Albert Kuhn (Revolver Amsterdam) explain why they boarded the latest film by Eduardo Williams, which follows a meandering group of friends within a rainy, windswept world. The Human Surge 3 was shot using a 360 degree VR helmet-camera before its framing onto a 2D screen through the use of VR goggles.

In examining why the spark in his parents’ marriage has become all but extinguished, Israeli director Ohad Milstein turns his camera on his own relationship with Swiss wife Rahel as both determine how far they are prepared to go to keep their union stimulating. “In the case of this film, I think that our curiosity about the truth is stronger than our fear of exposure,” says the director of his brave, complex and highly revelatory doc.

Running September 6-12, the 13th edition opens with Miko Revereza's Nowhere Near. Venues include the Barbican, Bertha DocHouse, Close-Up Film Centre, Curzon Soho, Genesis Cinema, Institute of Contemporary Arts, LUX, Rich Mix, Tate Modern and the Festival Hub in China Town (Soho). “Festivals like Open City offer a bridge between the filmmakers and audiences of the past, the present and the future,” write organisers.

Jess Search, co-founder and co-director of Doc Society, has died aged 54 following her recent diagnosis of brain cancer. Search’s death was announced August 2 by the organisation. She is survived by her partner, Finzi, and their two children, Ella and Ben.

The London-based sales agent has announced its acquisition for international sales of Nemanja Vojinović’s ‘western’ documentary Bottlemen. The Serbian-Slovenian film will world premiere at the upcoming Sarajevo Film Festival in Documentary competition, where it will compete for the Heart of Sarajevo award.

The major doc thrust of the 76th Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland) is found in the Semaine de la critique programme, founded in 1990 and this year presenting seven new documentaries, five of which are world premieres. Three prizes are up for grabs including the Grand Prix Semaine de la critique, valued at 5000 CHF. Locarno commences August 2, running through to August 12.