Nick Cunningham

“We are looking for films that address the world's most relevant issues, but also reach back into history if they can have a message that is relevant to today,” Kraków FF director Krzysztof Gierat tells BDE ahead of the 63rd edition of the festival running 28 May to 4 June in Kraków, and across Poland on the KFF VOD online streaming platform between 2 and 18 June.

The 2023 DocsBarcelona Industry awards were handed out May 25. Major winners were Firouzeh Khosrovani and Morteza Ahmadvand’s Past Future Continuous, and New Adam by Máté Takács and Declan McGrath. Every year DocsBarcelona Industry brings together producers and directors seeking financing or advice for their projects with financiers, commissioning editors and international sales agents.

The Docs-in-Progress awards were handed out May 23 at the end of Cannes Marché’s headline Doc Day. Top cash awards went to Island of the Winds, directed by Ya-Ting HSU (IEFTA Award, €10,000), while Virpi Suutari’s Once Upon a Time in a Forest won the Al Jazeera Documentary Award, which entails a co-production deal with a minimum contribution of $15,000. All awards…

Sixteen 16 documentaries (8 features, 8 shorts) are submitted as nominees for the 16th Doc Alliance Awards which will be presented at this year’s guest festival DokuFest in Prizren (4 – 12 August). The Doc Alliance Awards are valued at with €5,000 (Best Feature) and €3,000 (Best Short) for the filmmakers to spend on their next projects.

The CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator training program for women-identifying documentary filmmakers announced May 22 its official selection for 2023. The sixth edition of the Accelerator features ten carefully curated documentary projects, with authors from Europe and the rest of the world. The announcement came after CIRCLE's showcase presentation at Cannes Docs.

The May 21 Chile showcase of four docs-in-progress is designed for international decision makers looking for new titles, in particular festival programmers and sales agents. In the main, the new Chilean projects (presented by Chiledoc) are looking for post-production funding or general gap financing, and are sometimes still open to co-production opportunities. Some of the projects’ producers talk to BDE.

The Scandi showcase of four docs-in-progress is designed for decision makers looking for new titles, in particular festival programmers and sales agents. In the main, projects are looking for post-production funding or general gap financing, and are sometimes still open to co-production opportunities. The lead countries on the four projects are Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The projects’ producers talk to BDE.

Documentaries on the Croisette may be sailing on a sea of fiction, but a safe harbour for all doccers can be found at Cannes Docs in the Riviera, where Pierre-Alexis Chevit and his colleagues have again created a bespoke market programme of pitches, presentations, key notes, debates and special screenings, culminating with the thought forum Doc Day on May 23. The Cannes Docs chief explains his event to BDE.

Producer Denis Vaslin, who runs Rotterdam-based Volya Films together with Fleur Knopperts, discusses why he boarded Wang Bing’s epic 3.5 hour documentary Youth (Spring), itself the first part of a 11-hour essay on contemporary China. The film is selected for Cannes Competition 2023. “He is a unique filmmaker, very courageous in his method and perseverant,” Vaslin says of the Chinese director.

The 2023 programme includes: 21 Industry sessions, Craft Summit sessions, 4 Marketplace sessions, 4 Live Pitch sessions, The Filmmaker Challenge (with Kevin Macdonald), an Alternate Realities Summit, 6 Marketplace Rough Cuts and selected BFI DocSociety Works In Progress screenings (by invitation), as well as the 2023 MeetMarket pitching forum.