Nick Cunningham

The English-language East Doc Platform 2025 open programme, which offers free access to lectures, panel discussions and film screenings, takes place primarily at the French Institute in Prague from March 14 to 19. “Attendees will have the chance to explore the art and business of documentary filmmaking from multiple angles,” organisers write. The Platform also unveiled details of this year’s juries, as well as the awards up for grabs.

The Sarajevo-based event, presented alongside the Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC), invites producer and filmmakers to submit their documentary projects at development, pre-production, production and rough-cut stage. The deadline for submission is 31 May 2025. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of July 2025. The 4th AJD Industry Days will take place September 13-15.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and former NATO Secretary General (and current Norwegian Finance Minister) Jens Stoltenberg will attend the opening of CPH:DOX March 19 to watch and discuss the festival opener Facing War, directed by Tommy Gulliksen, as well as the future of the NATO alliance. Niklas Engstrøm, Artistic Director at CPH:DOX, expressed his gratitude that the politicians will visit CPH:DOX “to discuss the value of diplomacy in the new world order.”

The 4-day professional programme of Visions du Réel has selected 28 projects from 28 countries, with a record number of female directors, returning award-winning alumni and a host of new talent. “I hope that this selection will be a welcome reminder of the incredible strength, talent and resilience of these creators, but also of the singular transformative power of a unique, auteur-led documentary cinema,” comments Alice Burgin, Head of VdR-Industry which runs April 6-9.

The six Works-in-Progress screenings will take place on 26 and 27 March at the Alliance Française de Paris as part of the 47th Cinéma du réel. Works-in-Progress screenings are accessible upon registration only to professionals with a distribution and film-placement activity: festivals, sales, TV, theatrical and web distribution.

The Echoes of the 28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival begin this week in Bucharest. The Echoes programme will feature the award-winning films from last year's Ji.hlava IDFF which will be screened at the Czech Centre in Bucharest. Documentaries from the Ji.hlava’s 28th edition will also be screened in Belgium, Serbia, Slovakia, and the USA.

European Film Promotion (EFP) and CPH:DOX announced March 4 the launch of EUROPE! On Demand, a new initiative designed to boost the visibility of European documentaries in the North American market. The online showcase, jointly curated by EFP and the programming team at CPH:DOX, presents a hand-picked selection of seven outstanding European documentaries and world premieres from this year's line-up to U.S. buyers and distributors.

Running March 13-19, East Doc Platform is the largest co-production, funding and distribution platform for Central and East European documentaries. Every year, organisers look to connect CEE filmmakers and decision makers - producers, broadcasters, distributors and festival programmers - from around the world. The 13th edition will take place during the One World human rights film festival.

This year Czech human rights fest One World will offer, in addition to 41 films across 4 competition sections, seven non-competitive categories, with films within the themed sections of Family Webs, Female Gaze, Male Beings, Ecosystems, Searching for Freedom, and Community Boundaries. This year, the regional focus is on Slovakia in the Slovak Journey section. Fiction films with human rights themes also feature in the thematic sections. One World will run March 12 to April 27 across 57 Czech cities.

No Other Land, directed by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 97th Academy Awards, held March 2 in LA. “We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people,” said co-director Adra on receiving the award. The Best Short Doc Academy Award went to The Only Girl in the Orchestra by Molly O’Brien, a Netflix film about the double bassist Orin O’Brien, the director’s aunt.