Nick Cunningham

The Institute of Documentary Film (IDF) has announced the nine projects selected for the first edition of its new training initiative, Docs Beyond: Audience, Impact & AI, running 6 October to 11 December 2026. Throughout Autumn 2026, the selected teams will work with experienced international professionals to develop either an impact campaign or an audience design & outreach strategy for their films.

The Documentary Association of Europe (DAE) announced September 23 the appointment of Charlie Philips as its new Programme Director (Advocacy and Curation). He replaces Brigid O’Shea, who has led DAE since its launch in 2020 and who will remain on the Executive Board. Philips is an independent doc producer and a former Head of Documentaries at the Guardian, where his commissions won Oscar and BAFTA short documentary awards, and was Deputy Director at Sheffield DocFest.

The prize for Best Nordic Doc was handed to The Smuggler by Sylvelin Måkestad, while the City of Malmö Audience Award went to Little Sinner by Daro Hansen & Thomas Papapetros. This year’s Nordic Documentary Producer Award was won by Juha Löppönen of Mouka Filmi, Finland, while the inaugural ARTE European Talent Development Award went to the feature project Lost at Sea, directed by Ejner Benedict Seidelin, and produced by Claes Hedlund at Paloma Productions (Denmark). All awards…

CPH:LAB, CPH:DOX's talent development and training programme, has selected nine new international immersive documentary projects for its 2026-2027 line-up. The curated selection spans a wide range of topics, genres, and artistic approaches, with a diverse group of storytellers from around the world behind the projects. Participants will spend the coming months in an intensive development phase, culminating in prototype presentations at CPH:DOX 2027 in Copenhagen, running March 10–21.

Ahead of the 15th Finnish Film Affair, running September 23 to 25, Head of Industry Lydia Taylerson answers questions posed by Business Doc Europe. During the event, eight documentary feature projects will be pitched to the professionals in attendance. “In all honesty, I think Finland's unique selling point is the lack of hierarchy within the film industry here,” Taylerson says. “Anyone who attends Finnish Film Affair also feels that. You can be a producer just starting out in your career, and over morning coffee be chatting with senior programmers of Tribeca or SXSW.”

This year at DOK Leipzig (26 Oct – Nov 1), Young DOK is once again showing a selection of diverse and age-appropriate documentary and animated films, inviting audiences young and old to dream and reflect. The section is made up of Kids DOK - for youngest film buffs, of nursery and primary school age - and Young Eyes, which features films for teenagers. Alongside German productions and films with no dialogue at all, international titles will be screened with subtitles.

The second edition of NLWave presents a curated selection of 35 Dutch projects, ranging from early stage projects to works in progress, to an international group of festival programmers, sales agents and distributors. Fourteen of these are documentary projects, of which two are first-time pitches and twelve are WIPs. The showcase runs from 30 September to 2 October in Utrecht, where it coincides with the closing of the Netherlands Film Festival.

The 24th edition, running 15 to 25 October, will present 34 world premieres, 13 international premieres, three European premieres and 32 Portuguese premieres, “spanning generations, geographies and different ways of making and thinking about cinema,” organisers write. Doclisboa opens with Asphalt Guerrilla by Edgar Pêra, and closes with Thanks for Coming by 95-year-old Alain Cavalier.

DocsBarcelona has opened the call for submissions for its 30th edition, running 29 April to 9 May 2027. The festival will once again bring together a selection of the best international, Spanish and Catalan documentary cinema, with several competitive sections, special screenings, premieres and a major retrospective. Deadline for short docs: 28 September 2026. Deadline for feature docs: 30 November 2026. Early bird deadline for feature films: 2 October 2026.

The People’s Choice Documentary Award was presented to Barry Avrich for Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been, while the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award was presented to Matthew Rankin for Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney. Honourable Mentions went to The Black Box is Orange by Yuula Benivolski (Best Canadian Discovery Award), and Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story by Adrian Buitenhuis (Best Canadian Feature Award).