Nick Cunningham

If documentaries at Cannes sail on a sea of fiction, then Pierre-Alexis Chevit’s Cannes Docs sidebar represents something of a safe harbour for all doccers, be they filmmakers, producers, sellers or docfests. Cannes Docs is furthermore a place with a clear and proud identity, Chevit tells BDE. “It is a strategic place of community gathering for all of us doc-believers, to stand our ground in Cannes and affirm, loud and clear, that docs are cinema. Period.”

Hot on the heels of its Impact Days and Movies That Matter pitches (March), the First Hand films-produced Kalari Kid tells of the eponymous Indian martial art that is taking on greater significance for women within a society where gender-based violence is commonplace. “Raising awareness is essential to spreading the clear message of zero tolerance for all forms of violence against women and girls,” First Hand Films’ Daniel Schneider tells BDE.

The highly cinematic feature project Jaripeo offers a queer perspective on the titular jaripeo, a central Mexican style of rodeo known for its traditional cowboys and displays of machismo. “The film utilizes verité, Super-8 and abstracted sequences to walk the line between the real and the subconscious,” says co-director Efraín Mojica. “As a twinkly little kid, I didn't really fit into this macho of fantasy. As a teenager though, I mean, who doesn't like to see hot cowboys?”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that film festival masterclasses are delivered in hushed, reverential tones to an ostensibly mute and seated audience. Not when Northern Irish filmmaker/academic/doc maverick Mark Cousins comes to town. This week he was in Warsaw to engage head-to-head with MDAG Artistic Director Karol Piekarczyk and, in the process, deliver what he called his “anti-masterclass.”

The tousle-haired musical knight Sir Simon Rattle is the focus of Benedikt Schulte’s new documentary world-premiering May 16 in The Sound of Music section of DOK.fest Munich. And given that Rattle is the chief conductor of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and has German citizenship, he’ll be there in person to see it. Director Schulte gets musical with BDE.

On May 11, the awards of Millennium Docs Against Gravity Industry programme were handed out. This year’s event featured 4 pitching sessions, 42 projects and over 340 one-on-one meetings. “We’re proud to support these outstanding projects at every stage of their journey. With such bold voices and powerful stories, we truly believe the films developed here will resonate with audiences around the world,” said Anna Szczypińska, Head of MDAG Industry.

After premiering his feature debut Mañana Sol at DOK.fest Munich in 2024, prolific German producer/director Denis Pavlovic is now screening the film on the Doc Around Europe VOD platform. Additionally, he has three further works in the pipeline. As producer, The Mountain Has Fallen (director Thomas Oswald) competes for a DOK.composition Award at DOK.fest Munich 2025. As director/producer, Pavlovic is raising finance on the feature doc Hidden Lines: A Life with Scoliosis, optioned by SWR, and is further raising finance on the feature doc A Land That Time Forgot.

Kompleta is an intimate record of an extremely difficult period in the lives of the directors Tomasz Śliwiński and Magdalena Hueckel. Magdalena, while 8 months pregnant, was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. In the film, which world-premiered May 10 and pitched at the Pole Position event in Warsaw, the directors combine raw documentary footage with elements of music video, photography and collage in an experimental attempt to process their trauma through art.

Nava Mama, by Romanian Ana Vîjdea, tells of her return to the village – the mothership of the title – where she grew up, in order to break the cycle of violence that she experienced throughout her childhood. “It was a violence that seemed so pervasive that my grandmother used to cry herself to sleep. She woke up crying and I was crying alongside her without really understanding why,” she told the professional audience in Warsaw.

German production and sales maestro Heino Deckert was handed the 2025 Docs d’Honor Award during the opening ceremony of the 28th DocsBarcelona. The festival is screening two of his films, the Oscar-nominated Rabbit à la Berlin by Polish Bartosz Konopka, and Heimat is a Space in Time, the final film of Thomas Heise, who passed away in 2024. It is the film Deckert is most proud of. “When this film is shown even in 50 years time, people will understand the whole of the 20th Century when they watch it.”