Nick Cunningham

Finnish Film Affair, the industry arm of HIFF - Love & Anarchy, is an international marketplace for Finnish and Nordic films and a networking event for over 500 industry professionals from around the world. Documentary projects in development, production and post-production, with a Finnish co-producer, are now invited to apply for the event’s Showcase Day. The deadline for applications is May 29.

Ex Oriente Film is a project-based training program & creative lab for both established and emerging film professionals supporting the development and funding of “exceptional, creative” feature docs & series from Central and Eastern Europe. The deadline for submission to the 3-part programme held during Sunny Side, DOK Leipzig (both 2023 and East Doc Platform (Prague, 2024) is April 14.

“The real is out there,” says the Swiss doc festival ahead of its 54th edition that comprises a “powerful and dazzling programme that showcases the strength of contemporary non-fiction filmmaking.” VdR 2023 will screen 163 films, including 82 world, 11 international, 2 European and 26 Swiss premieres, and welcomes three main guests: Argentinian Lucrecia Martel, Italian Alice Rohrwacher and Swiss Jean-Stéphane Bron.

The main Dox:Award goes to Motherland by Alexander Mihalkovich & Hanna Badziaka. The F:act Award was won by Seven Winters in Tehran by Steffi Niederzoll while the Nordic:Dox Award was picked up by Jella Bethmann for Mrs. Hansen & the Bad Companions. All the award-winning films will be screened in cinemas in Copenhagen March 27 and 28. All winners follow…

Cutting edge science, the prehistoric past and the rituals of indigenous folk collide in Dane Dodds’ delicate, compassionate and strikingly assembled documentary film !AITSA, set against the stunning backdrop of The Karoo, a vast desert area in South Africa the size of Germany.

The Special Eurimages Award was given to the Ukrainian Red Zone by Iryna Tsilyk, while the 10th Eurimages Co-production Development Award was won by Only on Earth by Robin Petré. Both are valued at €20,000. The Unifrance Doc Award, valued at €5900 in subtitling services and Unifrance membership, went to Cuba & Alaska by Yegor Troyanovsky.

The Chilean presence at CPH:DOX may have been relatively low key in 2023 but Chiledoc Deputy Director Flor Rubina is hopeful that this will increase significantly in coming years after she observed the public and industry-facing activities at CPH this week. Three Chilean films screened this year, including Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory.     

An engagingly playful Los Angeles-based hybrid feature doc which is rendered even more striking by its astute use of sign language and subtitles by a director who is, herself, d/Deaf. The film dwells upon a series of mysterious tuba thefts and therefore silence and sound are key components in O’Daniel’s unique and impactful experience.

For the first time, the East Silver Market will take place at the East Doc Platform. The Institute of Documentary Film has prepared individual meetings between decision makers and creators of projects in post-production and finished films from the CEE region. A videolibrary with East Silver and One World titles will be available for accredited guests at the French Institute in Prague.

As we see within each tableau vivant of Anna Hints’ Sundance-winning doc, the Estonian smoke sauna is a place for physical, emotional and psychological cleansing, for revelation and for wonderful storytelling. “That is the magic. You go into this smoke sauna and you don't care…it’s the space [where] somebody tells and somebody listens,” the director tells BDE.