Nick Cunningham

The award of Best Film was given to Peruvian director Tatiana Fuentes at the May 17 awards ceremony. The festival has so far attracted 11,000 spectators as well as 800 accredited professionals. “This edition has been a celebration of documentary film as a place for collective reflection and shared experience,” said Maria Colomer, Co-Artistic Director and Head of Programming. All winners…

Beldocs Industry Days has unveiled the official selection of projects and participants for its 2025 edition, running May 21–25 in Belgrade, with an online component available to international guests. This year’s line-up reflects “the bold artistic vision and expanding reach of Beldocs,” welcoming over 40 projects and initiatives from the Western Balkans, Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and beyond—with Poland as the 2025 Focus Country.

The May 18 showcase will comprise “four cinematic, personal and political films” by CIRCLE alumni. CIRCLE Doc Accelerator is an annual training programme, open to up to 10 women and gender-expansive directors and producers who are developing documentary projects with strong international appeal. “Together we work to expand the notion of a safe space we co-created together, inspired by new possibilities and technologies,” says Biljana Tutorov, program director.

“Chilean documentaries have managed to position themselves globally for their artistic quality, for raising universal issues with creative points of view and for their capacity for exploration that manages to awaken astonishment,” says Paula Ossandón, director of Chiledoc. Four Chilean docs-in-progress will be showcased May 19 in Cannes Docs while a dozen other Chilean documentaries will be represented by the non-fiction delegation at this year’s Cannes Marché.

Impact is at the core of Aline Juárez and Juan Francisco Donoso’s All We Have Is Us, which follows socio-environmental movements defending the Atacama Desert (Chile) and the Jadar Valley (Serbia) against increasingly pervasive lithium mining. "[This] is more than a documentary: this film will be a masterclass, a resource to foster dialogue, inspire action, and connect struggles across continents," says Juárez.

Capitán (Colombia/Spain) by Laura Otárola took home the DocsBarcelona Award for Best Project during the event’s May 15 awards ceremony. Gaza Sunbirds (Spain/Belg/UK) by Flavia Cappellini won the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel Co-production Award. The awards ceremony marked the conclusion of DocsBarcelona Industry. This year’s edition brought together more than 750 accredited professionals from around the world for four days of pitching sessions, networking events, and many industry-oriented activities.

The Palestine Film Institute (PFI) is back at the Marché with a dedicated showcase of four documentaries to be presented at Cannes Docs May 19. “Our art and culture - and in particular, our cinema - have always played a fundamental role in protecting our narrative and reflecting our struggles as Palestinians over the past 77 years to merely exist,” says PFI Co-Founder, Legal Board and Programming Consultant Mohanad Yaqubi.

Docs Ireland will honour the late Irish cinematographer Ross McDonnell with the inaugural Ross McDonnell Cinematography Award. First events from the Industry Programme include a panel of leading industry cinematographers to include Kate McCullough and Magda Kowalczyk; a Spotlight on Poland, and the return of the Northern Ireland Screen Pitch and Docs Ireland Marketplace.

Finnish producer Pasi Hakkio (Wacky Tie) and director Joel Karppanen pitched the feature debut Labour Day, about the lives of food couriers operating within many of the world’s capitals. “We’re often told not to bite the hand that feeds us. But in the era of tech oligarchy, we feed the hand! Withdrawing from platforms isn’t an act of defiance against a benevolent provider — it’s reclaiming what was always ours,” says the director.

Guillermo F Florez pitched his feature doc Lord Take Me Soon as a Rough Cut in Barcelona in 2024. This year the finished work world-premieres in Official Selection. The film concerns 86-year-old Carmen - previously a nun and the taker of several lovers – who wanted to end her life through euthanasia. ““Thanks to Carmen’s personality, it’s mostly a life-affirming story, and a portrait of a Quixotesque woman who suffered the oppression of an extremely conservative society, especially of women,” Florez tells BDE.